
TIbe Craig press, jpublisbers, 

176=178 fl&onroe Street. 

1893, 






PRICE, 50 CENTS. 



MYSTERIES 

OF 
CHICAGO 



Cbicago; 

TTbe Craig jpress, 176*178 fl&onroc St. 
1893. 



INDEX. 



Pubi r) rejace. 

........ ..... g 

. and the Poor. 

ago's Glories- -The Other Side of the Picture 
"Why"' 
The Hei-i 

dim 

.ng 

:;ur>pirg tho Stree-t 



13-29 
? FJieir h\ 



Jnfli 

:i<: 

. 



vi. INDEX. 

Theaters, Concert Halls and Museums. 

Good and Evil Theaters Gilbert's Strong Criti- 
cism Teachers of Crime Lustful Advertisements 
Vice Schools Saloons and Houses of Prostitu- 
tion in Disguise A Hellish Place Fearful De- 
basement Gorged With Living Prey Ruthless 
Thieves Sodom and Gomorrah Outdone Clem- 
ent Scott's Warning Caterers to Morbid Curiosity 
Wide -Reaching Influence for Evil 54-6? 

Immoral Dives. 

Feeders to Worse Places "The Nude in Art" 
" Opium Dreams " A Basement Hell Diabolical 
Debasement of Our Boys French Playing Cards 
Racy Packages The Tricks of These Swindlers 
Guides to Evil Houses Where is the Law ? 64-G& 

Obscene Pictures, Books and Advertisements. 

The Pompeii Frescoes Nude Women's Pictures 
The Saloon and Obscene Pictures Liquor Adver- 
tising Tobacco Pictures Theatrical Posters Chi- 
cago's Vile Books Business Ability Fearfully. 
Prostituted How These Vile Books are Adver- 
tised Excuses for Sensuality and Prostitution 
Sent to the Penitentiary Need for Immediate 
Suppression 

The Social Evil. 

Licentiousness the Most Powerful Cause of 
Crime A Gigantic Evil Woman's Side of the 
Question Ignored The "Dual" Standard of Chas- 
tityInfested With Prostitutes "Fallen Men" 
Needed Laws A Hard Case Traps for Girls 
Lecherous Wretches Mr. Ballard's Offer The 
Widespread Extent of Lust The Black Hole- 
Lying hi Wait The Prostitutes' Restaurants 
Temptations to Young Men Unchaste Through 
Poverty Manufactories of Fallen Women Pro- 
fessional Prostitutes Gilded Palaces of Sin Cab- 
man Commissioner's Report The Patrons of These 
Places Who are They? How They Entrap In- 
nocent Girls Where the Patrons' Photographs 
are to be Found Whence Comes the Army of 
Prostitutes ? The Chicago Liberal The Influence 
of th.e_Saloon A White Girl in a Colored House 



a :: * vd- 

- 

Jie 

-Illegitimate Children 
)le Fiend of 

sage J'. 

Prostitution 
.cant Hooina 
Pi, 

jpers Adver- 

^? 

.aped- A "F 

Procuresses*. Abd 

The F 

Ifc- 

seiit A DIS.L 

hood of -;oy A 

Dreadful 

Observations on the Making of Criminals. 

Criminals, Born and 

Well as Evil . ier, T!u-ft and Lnst 

Criminality < irents 

WroT-. .ns The Evi: Phy- 

uicians The Effect of Vile Adver 
ThePubK 

/ 
The Agencit. of Refer- 

Relief and Ai<: T-'ov 

Fallen Worn. Army 

King's Daughter- itions^ Per- 



viii. INDEX. 

The Agencies oj Reform. Continued. 

sonal Visitation at Hospitals Police Matrons 
Erring Women's Refuge Anchorage Mission 
Midnight Mission Bureau of Justice Protective 
Agency Can Fallen Women be Reclaimed ? Im- 
mediate Relief Societies The Public Presa 

A Word to Pro Jessing Christians. 

The Position Occupied by Christians Who the 
Chapter is For How to Show Our Love to God 
Why are You so Favored ? None of Your Busi- 
ness ! Shoddy Christianity Large Salaries to 
Ministers Weak Christians Kill Your Own Sel- 
fishness What Ought You to Do ? Ministers and 
Dogmas Dr. Pressley's Mistaken Words What is 
the Remedy ? " 165-176 

Suggestive Remedies. 

Unselfish Love to Help Sterness to Crush The 
Survival of the Fittest The Theory of Emascula- 
tion Crimes Against Criminals The Insane In- 
discriminate Giving How About the "Unworthy" 
Poor ? Lodging Houses The Glasgow Plan 
Homes For Working Men Cooking Depots 
Public Baths How to Banish Beggary Where 
Booth's Plan Will Fail No Delegation of Charity 
Work Encouragement to Thrift Industrial 
Schools Rich Men their own Almoners True and 
Mimetic Poverty The sad plight of the Rich Mao 
The Saloon must go High License Enforce 
Present Laws Close Saloons on Sunday Dis- 
franchise Drunkards No Girls to sell Beer More 
Coffee Houses Water Fountains Public Conve- 
niences Need of Entertainment Music Singing 
Classes Organ Concerts Lectures People's 
Churches Great Preachers to give their Services 
for the Poor Public Museums Hold Policemen 
Responsible for Immoral Dives Imprison their 
Keepers Drive out the Obscene Books Educate 
the Children to know and avoid them The same 
Law for Men and Women Close up Houses of 
Prostitution Abolish acre of Consent Disfran- 
chise Unchaste Married Men Close up Massage 
Parlors Children to know the Law of Sex Mis- 
taken Kindness The Horrible "Physical Neces- 
sity" Doctrine Midnight Mission Home for Shop 
Girls Wise Sympathy the only Cure for Poverty, 
Degradation and Crime. ITf-SlS 



PRELUDE. 



"Discovered perils are opportunities and incentives to 
disciples of the Great Physician." 

Simon J. McFhersoii, D.D. 



STANLEY visited the heart of the Dark Conti- 
nent and wrote " In Darkest Africa ;" General 
Booth, of the Salvation Army, explored the 
deepest .recesses of poverty, crime and vice in England 
and wrote "In Darkest England;" and I, in conjunction 
with my assistants, have gone into many of the dark 
" dens " and " black holes " of Chicago, and " Chicago's 
Dark Places " is written as the product of those visits 
and investigations. 

The facts here presented are the combined results 
of the most thorough and careful scrutinizations made 
by all the commissioners engaged in this work, but are 
so arranged and connected as to simplify them for the 
reader. 

This book is not written for sensational purposes; 
it is not offered to gratify any prurient curiosity; but 
the motives of both commissioners and publisher have 
been to arouse in the patriotic, philanthropic and 
Christian people of this great city an intense desire to 
more effectually cope with the sin, sorrow, poverty, 
vice and wretchedness that these pages disclose. 

There is not a single exaggerated statement, con- 



IO 

the whole book. The facts, and the 
facts alone, are given, and, if disputed, can* be proven^ 
by ; \ny person who will take the 

ble to carefully investigate : that muck >;; 

than is contained in this volume could truthfully be 
said and still leave the record 'of poverty, woe and" vice 
incomplete and fragmentary. We have only touched 
here and there the great cancers that so deface 
beauty and destroy the healthfullness of Chicago. 

There are those who will exclaim : What good do- 
hope to accomplish by the publication of such a 
':?. They will shake their heads in condemnation 
of our -ver we make to all such is/ 

That poverty, disease and vice are lurking, i\ot only in 
" the dark places,"' but in the business center of the 
city, and that many of the better class of citizens are 
apparently imuware of these existences. To assist them 
to carry out the necessary reforms, the character, o\< 
and aims of the proprietors of the " dark places" must 
be '. When this is done, there is some hope of 

orough moral scavenger work- being* inaugurated 
and vigorously prosecuted. 

Plain language has been used not any plainer, 
however, than was necessary to let the reader under- 
stand the terrible conditions in which the poor and 
vicious of this c\ty live. 

If these pages result" in tHe a*vkening of the 
jpeeple of Chicago So tne urgent needs and demands of 



PRELUDE. IJ 

the present hour, and to renewed activity and increase 
in the organizations which already exist for the ameli- 
oration of the fearful conditions under which the pov- 
erty-stricken and criminal classes dwell, whose lives, 
with their awful surroundings, are here depicted, the 
expenditure of time, energy and money on the part of 
commissioners -and publisher will be well repaid, and 
their labor not have been in vain. 

The remedies proposed are earnestly commended 
to the consideration of those who, regardless of creed 
or nationality, are striving to make Chicago GREAT in 
that righteousness which exalteth a nation, as well a's 
great in that material prosperity which has made her 
the cynosure of the business, eyes of the whole civilized 
world. 

THB CHIEF COMMISSIONER. 



Poverty and the Poor 



"It is not to die, or even 'to die of hunger, that makes 
a man wretched ; many men have died ; all men must 
the last exit of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. But 

- it i to live miserable we know not why ; to work and yet 
gain nothing ; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, gin 
with a cold, universal laissez-faire ; it is to die slowly all 
our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Justice, 
as in the accursed belly of a Phalaris' Bull ! This is, . 
remains forever, intolerable to all men whom God 
made." Cc.> 

"How shall the love of God be understood by those 

who have been nurtured in sight only of the greed of man ? " 

A Brooklyn Builder. 

THE visitor to Chicago who comes for pleasure, 
and recreation is taken by his frienas in an 
eleganf carriage, and driven down G\ 
Boulevard, Drexel Boulevard, Ashland Boulevard, 
Washington Boulevard, Sheridan Drive, Michigan 
Avenue,, and the many other, boulevards and avenues, 
past palatial residences, designed by skilful architects 
and built by experienced builders, into the parks 'ar.cl. 

*s which the city has wisely provided, an : 
the shores of grand old Lake Michigan. Pie . 
massive, Babel-like, public buildings an<' 
is feted at the clubs, and spends his evening in i 
the chastely appointed Auditorium, and in the o 
midnight hour is invited to "stand in the m 



14 POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

Michigan Avenue and look, first to the south and then 
to the north; and as the length of the avenue down 
which he drove in the daytime, is revealed in dimmest 
outline, in the darkness of the night, by the subdued 
yet clear light of the long lines of gas lamps he- thinks 
that, assuredly, he is now in the finest street that can be 
found in the heart of any great city in the habitable 
globe. In the morning he leaves Chicago, full of 
rhetorical enthusiasm over the great and glorious the 
young and beautiful city he has just left behind. Its 
homes are " super par excellence," its Auditorium, un- 
rivalled its parks, exquisite its lake-view, sublime^ 
its avenues, delightful its energy, wonderful its suc- 
cess, unequalled its future, glorious. Words fail him 
to express the feelings of astonishment that overcame 
him as he saw how the Goddess of Plenty had poured 
forth her golden stores into the lap of this phoenix of 
American cities. And, as far as he had seen, his judg- 
ment would have been correct, his enthusiasm easy to 
understand, and his laudation to be expected. 

But, alas! there are two sides to every picture. 
Too often we hear after the " Look on this side!" the 
sad response, " Now, look on that! " 

It must be acknowledged that it is the too great 
temptation of ordinary Chicago humanity to look only 
on the side of the prosperity, progress, magnificence 
and splendor of their city, and in the feelings of honest 
pride that spring up with such contemplation to forget, 
or wilfully overlook, the other side. 

There is more of optimism in our hearts than of 
pessimism, and it is because we believe that the optim- 
istic hearts of the men and women of Chicago will lead 
them to determine to make all things fair and beautitui 



POVERTY AND 1 HK POOR. 1 5 

and good in their city that this corps of commissioners 
was appointed to draw aside the veil that too long has 
covered the other the darker, the sadder side of the 
picture. 

Chicagoans! you are brave, you are fearless, you 
are manly, you are womanly. We honestly affirm 
this. Will you shrink from the contemplation of the 
lives of your brothers and sisters, because such contem- 
plation is saddening and painful? We have faith in 
you that you will not. We believe in you, that you 
will earnestly seek to help those whose sorrows are 
presented to you ; to detertninately punish those who 
deliberately befoul jour fair city. Therefore, without 
fear or hesitation, we show you some of the dark 
places that exist in your midst. 

It must be confessed and conceded that there do 
not exist in Chicago such -dense masses of dire degrada- 
tion and wretchedness of poverty as may be found in 
Xew York or London. But the conditions are here, 
and the coming years will surely develop them. There 
are localities, such as Little Hell, The Black Hole, the 
Italian Quarter, the Polish Quarter, the Arab tenement 
houses sections to be found off South Halsted, Third, 
Fourth, Pacific, Blue Island and other avenues and 
streets, that beggar description. Tumble down, rickety, 
wretched frame houses alleys full of reeking filth 
the refuse of stables, ash-piles, decaying vegetable 
matter, giving out foul odors, and uniting with miasmic 
cess-pools, in breeding disease and death. Here you 
may see blear-eyed, bloated-bodied, semi-palsied, de- 
jected, debased, degraded men and women; children 
who are utter strangers to soap, water and towel, and 
whose gieatest enjoyment is to dabble in the mud and 



16 POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

filth of the. alleys. Inside, the houses are as vile as their 
outer surroundings. Close,- stuffy and stinking, with- 
out any attempt at ventilation men arid 'women crowd- 
ing together as swine in a dirty sty cooking, eating r 
drinking, smoking, working and sleeping, all in the 
<-ame room no attempt at decency in the separation of 
the sexes boys, girls, elder brothers, sisters, father and. 
mother all lleeping together in one room; the picture is 
not one of beauty, nor fit for calm contemplation nor 
is contact with the immediate locations anything but 
nauseating in the extreme. 

Yet they exist. They are here in our midst, and 
they ought not to be here. Some effort should be made 
to remove them. In our chapter on " Remedies," there 
are some suggestions which we trust will be deemed 
thy of trial, and which are earnestly commended as 
the outcome of years of study and thought of those 
whose work has been in the amelioration of similar 
foul conditions in other large cities. 

There are many who will say^they ai*e pert, 
familiar with "the fact that i-n large city, there 

necessity, exist a large number of poor, 
very poor people, and that, therefore, Chicago is no 
exception to the general rule. 

It is not the purpose, of these pages to show that 
Chicago is an exception, but it is apparent'tViat dire 

; ration exists here on .the one hand, and that great 

'tli is in the bauds of professed!}' < i people 

and 2 other. 

o could read the columns of the / ome 

weeks ago, .when the editor, with his corps of report- 
ers, penetrated, some of the dark regions of po 
this c moved? The ' 



POVERTY AND THE POOR. I? 

woe there related were unquestionably true, and yet 
they were but a hundredth part of what might have 
been told. Relief was cheerfully given by many peo- 
ple, and yet it must be confessed the effort was but 
spasmodic, and the Herald itself stated that it had to 
close its relief rooms when there were still constant 
calls for aid. 

Our chief commissioner in speaking with a gentle- 
man well known in Chicago's political life, asked him 
to give his view of the general distress and poverty, and 
here is what he said: 

" When the city put in operation the compulsory 
education law, tenant inspectors were sent out to bring 
in the truant children. They found a great number so 
destitute that they were absolutely unfit to attend the 
public schools. Common decency would not permit 
that children of both sexes, in a worse than semi-nude 
condition, should associate in the school-rooms. A com. 
mittee of ladies representing the Chicago Women's 
Club, the Trades' Association and the Women's Asso- 
ciation, started a movement to clothe these poor 
children. In one season they clothed over 300, and 
yet, they acknowledged that they could only reach the 
mere outskirts, whilst the dense mass of poverty was 
allowed to remain unheeded and unhelped. 

" A friend of mine was an eye-witness to the fol- 
lowing: Some time in the middle of last winter an 
advertisement appeared in one of the papers for men 
to go out of the city and cut ice. Passing near the 
Canal Street depot my friend saw an immense crowd 
gathered there, and fearing a terrible railway accident 
had taken place, and that they were bringing in 
the dead and wounded, he worked his way into 



1 8 POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

the throng and asked what was the matter. To his 
astonishment he found that this great crowd was com- 
posed of laborers who had come to answer the adver- 
tisement for ice-cutters. Although the wages were 
small and the work disagreeable, so anxious were men 
for work, that they begged to be sent out. 

" I have in my possession a transcript of the daily 
record (for two days) of one of our city police sta- 
tions. Last February, in one night, 124 destitute, home 
less men applied for shelter 5/ and of this number sixty" 
eight were native-born Americans. The station was 
so crowded that in one cell S x 9^, fourteen men passed 
the night. Some would stand whilst the others lay 
packed like sardines, and after awhile, those standing 
would change places with those who, on the floor, were 
seeking to woo " sweet, peaceful sleep." And there is 
not a night that passes that you cannot find in the police 
stations a large number of these homeless men, who, 
because of their wretchedness and poverty, are thus 
compelled to become familiar with the cells where 
criminals only are supposed to be confined. It needs 
no keen acumen to see that this, in the very nature of 
things, has a demoralizing tendency, for, too often, 
alas! it is but a step from misfortune to criminality. It 
should be the aim of good government to do all it can 
to make that step hard to take, but this plan of sending 
poor men to the prison cells of bad men, simply because 
they have no means to go elsewhere, is a reversing of 
that principle, and thus renders the taking of the step 
from misfortune to criminality an easy and almost 
natural one. 

" An old man, wretched, poor, homeless and desti- 
tute not knowing where to lay his head, was seen t<? 



POVERTY AND THE POOR. IQ 

take a shovel and deliberately break a window of a 
store directly opposite the police station. 

" What did you do that for?" asked the policeman 
who arrested him. 

" 'Cos I was hungry and cold, and I knew if you 
got me I should have shelter and food." 

*' He was taken and cared for after he had violated 
the law, when, had there been sensible provision made 
for such cases he need not thus have violated it. 

" A gentleman standing by, in reply to the com- 
ment made that it was " hard lines for the poor old 
man," sagely remarked: "My dear sir! are you not 
aware that the law must protect property?" 

"Unfortunately, it is hard to see how such law 
does protect property in the slightest degree. The 
window was smashed, and the law made no indemnifi- 
cation to the owner. It punished the offender, by 
giving him what he asked for, but only gave it, after 
he had violated the law. 

" A short time ago the Globe instituted an inquiry 
as to the number of men at present in the city out of 
employment. It gave, as the total, that there were 
40,000 adults seeking work. Bear this statement in 
mind with what now follows. 

"At a meeting of the Trades' Association a mo- 
tion was made to the effect that the Association request 
the mayor of the city and the directory of the World's 
Fair to issue a proclamation declaring that the city was 
flooded with idle men, and warning the unemployed of 
other cities and districts not to come here as there was 
not work for them. 

" The following morning a reporter waited upon 
Mayor Cregier and asked him what he would do if 



2O POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

the resolution were presented to him. His immediate 1 
reply was to the effect that he would gladly issue such 
a proclamation, especially mentioning the fact that: 
there were 20,000 unemployed men in the city already. 
"Now look at the two statements, and you see the 
awfulness of the fact, no matter which estimate is ac- 
cepted as correct. Suppose you strike a balance 
between the two, (although the Trades' Association 
inclines to believe the Globe's figures are the more ac- 
curate), and you have the appalling assurance that 30,- 

000 unemployed men are wandering through the street* 
of this city seeking work. Even granted that the 
mayor's conservative estimate is most correct, the fear- 
ful fact still remains that our peace is menaced by 
twenty thousand men who have not the necessary work 
to earn their daily bread. 

" In a personal conversation I had with Vice- 
President Bryan of the World's Fair Directory, he 
asked the question if I didn't think that the publishing 
of the minimum rate of wages that the directors were 
to pay for unskilled labor, viz: $1.50 a day, would re- 
sult in the pouring into this city from the outlying 
districts and other cities, of many to whom even these 
small wages would be an alluring bait. Think of how 
much such a question implies! That men outside are 
so anxious to get work that they would flood this city 
in order to earn the large sum of $1.50 per day. 

"Only a few days ago the papers gave an account 
of a society just organized by some of the capitalists of 
this city for the establishment of a Laborer's Refuge. 

1 think they were to expend $8,000 in putting up a 
building where unemployed laborers could go and saw 
wood and do such like " chores " in order to relieve 



POVERTY AND THE POOR. 21 

-their more immediate and pressing necessities. This is 
an admission that all the ordinary methods already in 
operation to meet such cases are utterly inadequate to 
supply the demands made upon them for help, and that 
other means are urgently necessary to satisfy the re- 
quirements. 

" It is a well-known fact that in all conflicts 
between capital and labor, the capitalist enters into the 
strife knowing that he can fill the place of every striker 
vvithin a few hours. The supply is so great, and the 
anxiety of workingmen to obtain work so strong that 
they will, even risk their lives at the hands of the 
ofttimes desperate strikers in order to gain a position. 
The capitalist has no fear about getting laborers, the 
only fear he has is lest the organized labor should by 
force and violence prevent his " scab " workmen, a* 
they are termed, from proceeding. 

" These facts most conclusively refute the state- 
ments too often made that ' men won't work,' and 

* there's work enough if men are only willing to do 
it.' Such is not the truth. I can find you many in 
stances where good, steady workmen have offered to 
the foremen of certain esjablishments $10, $25, and 
even the whole of the first month's wages if they would, 
find them employment." 

Our commissioner acknowledged the potency of 
this argument, and then asked: "But how about the 

* bums ' who won't work even when it is offered to 
them ? " And the reply is one worthy the thoughtful 
consideration of all. Said he: " Let me ask, What is a 
bum? As a rule, you will find him to be a creature 
degraded by circumstances and evil conditions. Let 
,me illustrate. A man loses his job by sickness or some 



22 POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

other unavoidable cause. He seeks work, and I have 
shown you how difficult it is to find it. He fails time 
and time again. Is there any wonder that he grows 
discouraged, and that, picking up his meals at the free 
lunch counter, sleeping in the wretched lodging houses,, 
associating with the filthy and degraded, he, step by 
step, drifts further away from the habits of integrity 
and industry that used to be a part of himself. He 
sinks lower and lower until, overcome by circumstances, 
he is at the bottom of the social layer, a bum at once 
a menace and a disgrace to the city. Instead of blam- 
ing and condemning him, poor fellow, we should look 
at the circumstances that made him what he is, and 
endeavor to remedy them. I myself once spent fifteen 
weeks tramping the streets of this city, earnestly seek- 
ing work, and had not my wife and children been here 
to comfort and console me, God only knows what 
would have become of me had I grown discouraged. If 
I had been alone, in a strange city. I might have 
drifted into the slums, got ' bits ' around bar rooms, 
and ultimately have gone down into the sink just as- 
hundreds of others, quite as good as I, have done. 

" No, I assure you, it te only a narrow, ignoran^ 
superficial view of affairs that will lead anyone to doubt 
the existence of such wide-spread povertv, and the dif- 
ficulty there is to gain employment. I know thousands 
of people will meet my statements with their cool- 
blooded and virtuous remark that 'No one can earnestly 
seek work and not find it,' and thus shuffle their own 
responsibility on to the shoulders of the poor wretch 
who is close upon the verge of one of the three preci- 
pices of desperation, despair or crime. Let me em- 
phatically condemn that remark as in many cases abs.o- 



POVERTY AND THE POOR. 23 

lutely untrue. Then, when you force upon these vir- 
tuous people the facts of existing distress, they 'won- 
der how such things could be, and they never know of 
them.' " 

Such were the statements of general poverty 
prevalent in Chicago made to our commissioner, by 
this gentleman (a man who is living and struggling for 
the welfare of his fellow-men), in this city. 

The following cases are reported by our various 
commissioners, and they are but few of many that 
might be given : 

" Ah! come in! You're just in time to go with me 

to see Captain O , a poor old man whose life has 

been most unfortunate. I've just received this card 
from him." And a card was placed in my hands, on 
which, in piteous terms, the writer besought the doctor 
to come and see him and not let him die. 

We walked together to one of the wretched places 
of thex:ity, and going down a flight of steps came to a 
door of a wretched basement. The exterior was 
enough to give one the horrors, but, the inside! Words 
fail to describe it adequately. Think of it, ye servants 
of the Christ who had not where to lay His head; ye, 
who clothe yourselves in fine raiment and fare 
sumptuously every day; ye, who profess to be His fol- 
lowers and to believe in the Fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood' of man, think of it! Here was a den 
not fit for your dog; worse than any wickiup or wig- 
wam of the most degraded Indian of the most degraded 
tribe on this continent. I never saw a more despicable 
and wretched hole for human beings whom we class as 
civilized, than this place into which we now entered. 
Here to the right is an Irish woman busy at the wash- 



24 POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

tub. To the left is a tiny stove, around which are hung 
a number of the wet clothes; from one side of the 
stove comes out an old, stooping, gray-haired man, 
coughing with the effort to greet us. His face, when 
we can see it, bears the marks of refinement; indeed, he 
would be a benignant-looking, venerable old man if he 
were well dressed and in your home, gentle reader. 
He used to be well-to-do; was a good, moral man w 
Never smoked, chewed, drank or gambled, and yet ona, 
misfortune after another followed him until he was 
brought low. His first wife died ; his daughters " married 
well " and forgot their father from whose loins they 
sprang. He married again, and unfortunately dis 
covered soon after the step was taken that he had tied 
himself to a drunkard. Degradation followed poverty, 
until now he was "dying like a dog v ' at 60 years of 
age, in this place not fit for a respectable dog to kennel. 
The room was not more than 6xio feet, and was fully 
four feet below the level of the yard, where the mias- 
matic-breeding pools of stagnant water blinked at one 
through the dirty window. I stepped into the bedroom, 
just large enough to hold a bed. It was almost as dark 
as night, yet I soon saw the rags that constituted the 
covering. The poor old fellow said pathetically, " I'm 
half eaten up by hundreds of fleas, and I can't sleep in 
such a place." Then, stepping back to the kitchen, 
the old man held up a crust of dry bread two-thirds 
of a small loaf and said: " That's my fare for to-day,'" 
and then, with tears streaming down his cheeks, hi 
mournfully exclaimed : "Oh! doctor, for God's sake 
tell some of these Christian people to come and set 
after me, and don't let me die like a dog in thi' 
wretched hole." And die he assuredly must, and sooi 



POVERTY AM) THE POOR. 25 

too, unless speedy help be given. Suffering from 
tuberculosis, sitting within a foot's distance of damp 
and steaming clothes, insufficiently clothed and fed, 
without the opportunity of sleep, how can such a poor 
miserable being live. Still he clings to life. Life is 
sweet to him as to you, and yet in this great and 
wealthy city he is allowed to die in such conditions. 

Mrs. S , 63 years of age, has been a widow for 

fourteen years. I found her in a basement, the kitchen 
so dark as 1 entered that I could see no one to own the 
voice that saluted me. An alley ran by the side of the 
small window, but an immense wall shut out all the 
light. Here was a stove upon which the wash-boiler 
stood, for washing was going on the poor woman's 
chief means of subsistence. She was full of genuine 
aches and pains, in head, limbs and lungs. The doctor 
said but a short time ago she was entirely prostrate and 
in bed for weeks. I stepped into the dark, dingy bed- 
room, and wondered to myself how it was possible for 
anyone in sickness ever to get well when confined in 
such a place. And yet the old lady was cheerful and 
trustful. She seldom if ever complains. Her religion 
is a real comfort, and she finds her joy in looking for- 
ward to a " home in heaven." 

About the first of March of last year a letter was 
received, somewhat as follows, from a poor woman 
whom the doctor had before relieved: 

"DEAR DOCTOR: Please come and see me. I 
am sick in bed, and have lost the use of my legs. 
I think I've got diptheria. I haven't any coal, and 
there is nothing to eat in the house. Baby is sick and 
I'm left alone. Please come and see me." 

When the doctor arrived at the wretched place this 



26 POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

woman called " home," she found it a miserable, dark, 
damp basement. There was no coal, no fire, and not 
a particle of food in the house. The woman had a 
four weeks' old baby by her side on the wretched mat- 
tress that served as bed. The babe was sick unto 
death; the woman herself had partial paralysis of the 
lower extremities and was suffering from a diphtheretic 
sore throat. To add to her misery, her drunken hus- 
band after cruelly beating her had left her, and with 
another child of two years of age to care for, there she 
lay, uncared for, unattended, forgotten, left to die in 
her wretchedness and misery, in a Christian city, a city 
which offers inducements to the world to come to her 
great exposition, a city which boasts her eloquent 
preachers and sanctified men and women. The doctor 
got coal from the county, gave her medicines until the 
death of the baby and her own recovery, and then upon 
making a later visit, learned that the brutal " husband" 
had returned, promised amendment, over-persuaded his 
wife, and they had gone to the South Side, where they 
were soon doubtless again buried in the slums of that 
quarter, and where my friend lost all trace of them. 

Mrs. P , left a widow some years ago, without 

.neans. Her son managed to support her, until at the 
age of sixteen he died. Is now perfectly destitute, and 
afflicted with rheumatism. Her desire is to get enorgh 
help to be able to rent a few rooms, furnish them, and 
then earn her livelihood by taking in roomers, for she 
is able to do such light work as caring for rooms. 

Here is a place, clean and neat though humble and 
poverty-stricken, where two maiden souls have knit 
themselves together to help make their poverty more 
tndurable. As we enter, we are met by the the sad face 



POVERTY AND THE TOOK. 2J 

of one of the women, who tells us that her companion 
is down in bed "sick with typhoid pneumonia." They 
can't afford a doctor, so she is being as well cared for 
as poverty-stricken love can care for her; but, "poor 
soul! she worries her life out, lest we should lose the 
little bit of work we have, for I can't attend to it and 
attend to her! You see, for weeks we've not had any 
\vork, and we'd hard work to keep body and soul 
together, and now, just when the work comes in, she 
goes and takes down sick. It's awful hard!" The 
patience and bravery and fortitude of these two women 
struggling hard with poverty, determined to be "hon- 
est" women in spite of all things, and to die if needs be 
in the conflict, would put to shame the Christianity of 
many of the ordinary women of our Christian churches. 
They are full of a moral heroism that deserves a crown 
of laurel, for with brave hearts they struggle on, deter- 
mined to win, and win they will if they have to die to 
do so. With words of good cheer my friend bade 
them hope on: " Behind each cloud the sun is shining!" 
"Keep quiet, dear! You'll soon be well," said she, 
turning to the poor faded woman lying in a burning 
high fever on her humble bed, and with a wan smile 
the sufferer thanked her visitor for her kind words, 
that to me in such a place, had I not known the pure, 
genuine heart of the speaker, would have sounded like 
the sarcastic mockery of cant. 

In the "workshop" there were several bundles of 
unfinished "pants" waiting to be sewed. These are 
sent, all cut out, and these women have to cut the trim- 
mings for them, make them up, sew on the buttons and 
finish them ready to be worn for the noble sum of 21 
cents. To aid a poor old woman worse off than them- 



28 POVERTY AND THE POOR. 

selves, they let her put on the bands, and for this they 
pay her 7 cents a pair. This leaves 14 cents for cutting 
and fitting the trimmings, basting together the material, 
sewing, pressing and finishing, and they furnish their 
own thread. In receiving and delivering the goods 
they have to pay expressage, and so, often, to save this 
item of expense they arrange to walk to the store and 
carry the work they have done. If the store cutter has 
failed to give out the right materials, rather than run 
the risk of losing the work by making complaint, they 
make the loss good; and whilst this does not occui' 
often, it occurs often enough to be counted as an item 
of expenditure. 

What wonder that with insufficient nourishment 
find overwork, one is overpowered and lies at the doof 
of death with typhoid pneumonia, and the other suffers 
from weak eyes induced by the same causes. 

Mrs. B , a woman in consumption, with one 

daughter 15, one son 12. Husband killed about three 
years ago on the railroad, where he was employed. 
Steady, sober, industrious, home-loving man. In spite 
of three years of destitution the home still bears many 
traces of his care for his family. The woman is yet 
young, being not more than 35, and yet she has buried 
eleven children. " Being Americans," to use her own 
words, "although my husband earned $125 a month, 
we lived right up to it and never thought of a rainy 
day." Two months after the cruel death of the hus- 
band she gave birth to a child. Then came the death 
of another of her children, soon to be followed by the 
death of the baby. The three were then left alone. 
The girl was compelled to stay home to care for the 
mother, and the lad earned, until last Christmas, $10 a 



POVERTY AND THE POOR. 29 

month; since when, his employers, knowing his kindness 
to his mother, have raised his wages to $15. The girl 
can sometimes leave her consumptive mother and go 
and earn a little. The rent is $6 or $7 a month, the 
lad earns $15. This leaves $8 a month for fuel, food, 
clothing and medicine (for the afflicted woman must 
have medicine) for three pei'sons. Think of the vari- 
ety of food, the luxuries that may be purchased for a 
family of three from $8 a month! Just enough for 
cigar money for some young men! About enough to 
pay for the beer of others! 

And this would be the state of affairs in this poor 
home were it not that help has been given from kindly 
friends, one of the circles of the King's Daughters, the 
fair members of which may God bless in their good 
work. 

These cases can be multiplied by hundreds of oth- 
ers, as the reports of all the relief societies abundantly 
testify. 

It is not our intention to enter into a discussion of 
the causes of poverty. The reformer must seek these 
himself. We simply call attention to the facts and urge 
that they demand speedy action for their remedy, ort 
the basis of the Golden Rule of Christ. 



Saloons and Their Habitues . 



"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that 
putteth the bottle to him, and maketh him drunken also." 

Habakkuk, 

"I believe that alcohol, to a certain degree, demor- 
alizes those who sell it and those who drink it. I believe 
from the time it issues from the coiled and poisonous worm 
of the distillery until it empties into the hell of crime, death 
and dishonor, it demoralizes everybody that touches it. I 
do not believe that anybody can contemplate the subject 
without becoming prejudiced against this liquid crime. All 
you have to do is to think of the wrecks upon either bank 
of this stream of death of the suicides, of the insanity, of 
the poverty, of the ignorance, of the distress, of the little 
children tugging at the faded dresses of weeping and de- 
spairing wives, asking for bread; of men of genius it has 
wrecked; of the millions who have struggled with imagi- 
nary serpents produced by this devilish thing. And when 
you think of the jails, of the almshouses, of the prisons, 
and of the scaffolds upon either bank I do not wonder 
that every thoughtful man is prejudiced against the damned 
stuff called alcohol." Robert G. Ingersoll. 

" This traffic lies at the center of all political and so- 
cial mischief. It paralyzes energies in every direction, it 
neutralizes educational agencies, it silences the voice of re- 
ligion, it baffles penal reform, it obstructs political reform." 

New York Tribune. 

OF this many headed saloon monster much has 
been written in newspapers, magazines and 
books much has been said on platform and 
pulpit, before the bar and on the bench, and yet it is 

30 



SALOONS AND Til LI R IIAiMTUES. 3! 

unquestionably true that " not half has ever been told." 
It is almost an impossibility to exaggerate the evils of 
this fearful business. Whatever may be the opinion of 
the individual reader as to the propriety of taking a glass 
of beer, wine or spirits, when one feels like it, there can 
be but one opinion as to the demoralizing effect of the 
open saloon. 

It is an astounding fact that in Chicago alone there 
are about 5,600 saloons. Place these saloons side by 
side and on each side of the roadway, giving each sa- 
loon a width of front of twenty feet, and you would 
have one vast street of saloons reaching o'-er TEN MILES 

IN EXTENT. 

Many licenses for saloons are granted where the 
city officials could refuse to grant them if they so de- 
sired. Indeed, it may be affirmed here, as the Rev. 
Thomas Dixon once declared of the Excise Board in 
New York: "It is perfectly safe to say that if the 
devil himself should apply to the board for a license to 
set up a branch establishment of hell on the children's 
playground in Central Park, it would grant it." 

Let us look at a few figures in regard to the saloon 
interest in this city. Our estimates are carefully made, 
and we will verify and defend them if challenged. 

For the year ending March i, 1891, the expendi- 
ture for beer in this city alone was not less than FORTY 
MILLION DOLLARS! $40,000,000!! 

The population is about 1,200,000. This gives an 
average expenditure for beer alone of $33.25 for every 
man, woman and child in Chicago, and these results are 
gained after the most conservative figuring. This 
would give over fifty-three gallons of beer to be con' 
sumed by each man, woman and child in the city. 



32 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

Now, when it is considered how many people 
fhere are who never touch the stuff, it is easy to perceive 
that somebody has a large cargo of beer annually to 
carry. 

We are told that Germany is a great beer drinking 
country, and yet the official statistics for 1888 show that 
in Germany only twenty-five gallons per capita were 
drunk. Our estimate for Chicago shows more than 
double that per capita. Shame on Chicago for such a 
showing! 

Let us look now and see what this immense sum 
of $40,000,000 annually spent in beer might do for this 
city if wisely expended. It would supply to 40,000 
Chicago families an income of $1,000 a year, or over 
$83 a month. 

Where would our Chicago poverty be if 40,000 
families were each spending in legitimate trade $83 a 
month? Workmen would be in demand and business 
would so increase as to make Chicago in ten years the 
leading city on this continent. 

But suppose we were to expend the beer money in 
educational purposes. We could build fifty new school 
houses, with manual training in each one of them, for 
all the children of Chicago, free; give more teachers in 
proportion, open more free kindergartens for the little 
ones, and publish free text books, and do all this with- 
out collecting a single cent of school tax, and keep it up 
for four years on the amount wasted in beer alone for 
one year. Think of it! Vastly increased school ac- 
commodation and no taxes for four years, and yet Chi- 
cago's sons and daughters citizens fool the money 
\vay in froth and dirty water. 

Two MILLIONS OF BARRELS of beer each year are 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 33 

thus consumed, at an expenditure of $40,000,000. Take 
this money and spend it directly in building beautiful 
new homes for the workingmen of this city, and what 
should we see? 

FOURTEEN THOUSAND commodious cottages built 
at a cost of $2,500 each, on lots which, bought in acre- 
age in a suburban district, could be deeded to the work- 
ingmen at $180 each, and these, together with a check 
for another $180, given to each family to help in fur- 
nishing the houses they owned. What an aggregation 
of domestic happiness in home life, and all for the 
money spent in beer for ONE YEAR ALONE. 

Now, if Chicago's expenditure for beer only 
amounts to $40,000,000 we may safely say that for all 
kinds of intoxicating beverages, including wines and 
distilled liquors, Chicago spent last year upwards of 
EIGHTY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Is there any limit to 
the great good that could come to the city with this 
amount expended in proper channels? 

If in the year 1891-2 only, this vast amount of 
money were expended as follows, what a city the world 
would be able to gaze upon in 1893 when the World's 
Fair is opened: 

In street improvements $10,000,000 

The great waterway 18,000,000 

Double the water supply 12,000,000 

Double the school accommodation 10,000,000 

New public library with immense additions and im- 
provements 5,000,000 

Public baths, model tenement houses for the poor and 

other improvements 10,000,000 

Fine art building 5,000,000 



Total , $70, ooo, ooo 



34 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

And there would still be left $10,000,000 for " inci- 
dentals," or to help Uncle Sam build a new city post- 
office. 

Take the directory and see what a vast difference 
there is in the number of other businesses in Chicago, 
compared with this great saloon business, whose chief 
products are drunken men and women, whoremongers, 
prostitutes, murderers, thieves, tramps, bums, vaga- 
bonds, ward politicians and general all-around scoun- 
drels. And yet this is the business we allow to exist in 
our midst because, forsooth, we can't find just the men 
we want to represent us in politics. Why don't the 
sensible, intelligent men of this city sink every other in- 
terest in the effort to crush out of existence this vile and 
demoralizing business, and then, whilst we don't believe 
the millennium would dawn on Chicago, we are sure 
that so much wretchedness and poverty would disap- 
pear as to make it a heaven to many whose existence in 
it now is a continual hell. 

For in dealing with the figures of this colossal evil 
we have necessarily been confined to the actual cost, 
but how about those expenditures of money, energy, 
time, character, manhood, womanhood, etc., that cannot 
be estimated? How about the increased number of 
criminals and increased police force required to care for 
them, as the outcome of this accursed business? How 
about the great cost'of accidents which occur directly 
through liquor, such as fires, injuries to the person, etc.? 

How about the cost in the loss of work and wages 
of men ruined by this business? 

How about the increased cost of the large number 
of paupers made so through drink? 

How about the cost in the reducing: of the effi- 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 35 

ciency of men through their slavery to this fearful habit? 

How about the vast amount of disease and predis- 
position to crime inherited by children as the result of 
their parents' dissipation? 

How about the cost in human lives shortened and 
wasted by this traffic? 

These costs can never fully be known until the 
day of judgment, when the whole of this infernal traffic 
will be banished to the hell to which it belongs, and 
from whence it sprang. 

That the saloon interest in Chicago is opposed to 
law, order and the due protection of its citizens, is 
proven most conclusively by the action of the saloon 
men when under Mr. Onahan's collectorship an attempt 
was made to pass an ordinance in which the following 
points were sought to be secured: 

1. No license to be granted a saloon to locate 
within 200 feet of any school, church or hospital. 

2. No one person or firm to be granted more than 
one saloon license. 

3. No licenses should be granted unless a majority 
of the property owners of the block gave their consent. 

4. No minor should be served with liquor, even 
for home consumption, unless by written request of 
parent or guardian. 

Strong speeches were made on the side of this or- 
dinance (which included other good points) but the sa- 
loon element defeated it. The Tribune and other 
papers spoke highly in its favor, but that didn't alter 
the votes of the seven brewers or saloonkeepers in the 
council, who themselves violated parliamentary law by 
voting on a resolution which directly affected their 
business. 



36 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

The attorney for the brewers said: "Ifth* first 
named restriction were imposed some two to hree 
hundred saloons would be closed and their license 
money lost to the city, thus crippling the city govern- 
ment." 

Look at this infamous statement! Between two 
and three hundred saloons in Chicago within a distance 
of 200 feet of schools, churches or hospitals. Infa- 
mous, indeed! If Chicago's city government cannot be 
run without putting these trap-doors to hell directly in 
front of the pathway of our boys and girls as they go 
to and from school if the city government cannot 
raise its finances in some less devilish way than this, we 
think all true men will say the sooner we have a new 
mode of government the better. 

The Chicago saloon to-day stands, a law-defying, 
disorder-producing, crime-breeding power, and it will 
continue its aggressions until it is slain and buried with 
its frre downwards, as the Welsh woman proposed to 
bury tne devil, so that if it should chance to come to life 
again and try to scratch its way out it would only bury 
itself the deeper. 

Nearly the whole saloon element is a law-defying 
element. The Brewers' Association pays the costs of 
all suits and defends all of its members 'whether they 
have violated the la-w or not, and thus aids these law- 
defying men to evade the penalties a just law would in- 
flict upon them. 

It is directly and openly charged that in the saloons 
of Chicago were hatched and fostered the horrible con- 
spiracies of the anarchists, the boodlers, and the Cronin 
murderers, conspiracies which cost the taxpayers of this 
city and county hundreds of thousands of dollars. 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 3/ 

The first serious riot that occurred in Chicago 
prior to 1886 was the Beer Riot of 1851 (or therea- 
bouts), when the Germans of the North Side, infuriated 
by the city council raising the beer license to $100, came 
en masse in the direction of the city. They weremet by 
the officers of the law at one of the bridges, and in the 
collision firearms were discharged and several killed. 

Then, too, the whole system is Un-American. This 
accursed saloon business is not in the hands of Ameri- 
cans. Let an American who is only familiar with his 
own language walk down the streets of Chicago and 
try and pronounce the names of the saloon-keepers, and 
he will find it an impossibility. What with Germans, 
Irish, Italians, Poles, Swedes, Russians and Spaniards, 
he may well wonder what foreign business this is that 
has intruded itself in an American city. 

We distinctly charge the saloons of Chicago with 
being violators of the law in the following points: 

They are required to close on Sunday, and yet al- 
most without exception they keep open, and there are 
not enough law abiding citizens in this great city to 
compel an enforcement of the law. 

Our chief commissioner would undertake to find a 
man who, in less than one year, if properly backed up, 
would close every saloon in this city on Sundays. 

Where are the men who will back him up? 

They are required not to sell to minors without a 
written order from parents or guardians sending for the 
beer or liquor. And yet there are positively thousands 
of saloons in this city who pay not the slightest atten- 
tion to this requirement. Children of tender years are 
seen constantly, daily, hourly, going into saloons and 
bringing therefrom pails of beer. 



38 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

Such an item in the columns of the Chicago press 
as the following, is unfortunately not rare. It exhibits 
the fiendishness of this traffic in one of its most hideous 
aspects : 

" Francis Stalke, a saloon-keeper at Manheim, a 
small town about one mile from Franklin Park, was 
recently made defendant in a $10,000 damage-suit 
brought in the Superior Court by N. C. Williams. 
Stalke is charged with selling liquor to Mr. Williams T 
lo-year-old son, Charles, who became insensible from 
intoxication, nearly losing his life and becoming dan- 
gerously ill. The story related by Mr. Sims, Mr. Wil- 
liams attorney, is as follows: 

"Charley was a bright lad but a trifle wild. His 
father is a carpenter at Franklin Park, in moderate cir- 
cumstances. One day Charley saw a drunken man 
reeling along the street, singing a wild song and appar- 
ently very happy. Strangely enough, the lad deter- 
mined to emulate this delectable example. He saved 
up his pennies, and two weeks ago,having accumulated 
enough money, he started out to satisfy this remarkable 
ambition. He went to Stalke's saloon, a mile away, 
and there purchased a bottle of whisky. Some of the 
fiery stuff, it is claimed, the boy drank in the saloon 
and in the presence of witnesses, and when he left the 
place he was already half crazed. He half reeled, half 
ran away, screaming and laughing in a foolish, maudlin 
way. By this time it was quite dusk and the boy was 
lost. He staggered around for awhile in a neighbor- 
hood that is deserted, and finally dropped down across 
the tracks of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad. 
Here he lay for two hours. Then he was picked up, 
still insensible, by a passer-by. Ten minutes later the 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 39 

fast night express rushed over the spot. The lad was 
taken home and in his pocket was found a -bottle half 
full of whisky. He was very ill for several days but 
finally recovered. Much indignation was expressed 
against Stalke and the Citizens' League took hold of 
the case, procuring the saloon-keeper's arrest for selling 
liquor to a minor. He pleaded guilty before the justice 
and a nominal fine was imposed. The boy's father, 
however, was unwilling to let the matter drop, and af- 
ter consulting Mr. Sims the present suit -was brought." 

They are forbidden to harbor prostitutes, and yet 
one saloon in this city keeps regularly all the way from 
twenty-five to thirty-five vile harlots, some of them 
ready, for a small sum of money, to dance in a perfectly 
nude condition before a company of men. And in hosts 
of the saloons special arrangements are made for the 
accommodation of prostitutes and their companions. 

To show how saloons go hand in hand with pros- 
titution, our commissioners report that on every hand 
in scores of saloons there are private compartments in 
which men and women go and sit, drinking beer, wine 
or spirits, and where, after the waiter has left the room, 
it may be locked and every kind of evil perpetrated. 

It is a common thing for the prostitutes met on the 
streets to ask the man they stop to go with them to a 
saloon to drink beer. "They will go into one of these 
compartments and have a good time, and all it shall cost 
him shall be the beer." Once get the victim to drink- 
ing, and alone in one of these places, he is sure to be 
fleeced. They will pick his pocket and steal from him 
all they can, and when he is squeezed as dry as they 
alone know how to squeeze, he is led out by some dark 
alley and threwn into the gutter, or left there to be 



4O SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

finally kicked out by the "bruiser" of the saloon. 

These beer halls and such like vile dens work hand 
in hand with the prostitutes. When a young fellow is 
growing "mellow" it is a common thing for one of the 
waiters to set a girl upon him; and the other night on 
Clark Street, within a block of the postoffice, a courte- 
san was seen propping up and dragging along a young 
man apparently a respectable clerk, or something of 
the kind who, however, was completely under the in- 
fluence of liquor, and who had been brought by her out 
of one of these dens of infamy. They ascended to the 
rooms of one of the European hotels, many of which 
are nothing but vile houses of assignation where pros- 
titutes are knowingly harbored, and he there was shut 
up in a room with this abandoned female. The result 
it needs no wisdom to foresee, or words to tell. 

Look at another feature. Why don't our dry- 
goods merchants and grocerymen place up a sign 
on their establishments like most of the whiskey 
and beer places of this city do, informing their cus- 
tomers that here is the "Ladies' Entrance" ? Why the 
need of a separate entrance for ladies? Is not this a 
tacit acknowledgement, and yet openly flaunted in the 
face of the world, that the saloon is not a fit place for 
men and women to meet together ? A man has no hes- 
itation in accompanying his wife, or having her accom- 
pany him to any other business place in this city; but 
in the saloon she must take one entrance and the hus- 
band the other. 

Why is thi> ? 

It is because there is not a single saloon in this city 
into which any decent woman ought to set foot. The 
pictures on the walls, the horrible language of the fre- 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 41 

quenters of the place profane, vulgar, smutty the 
sights too often seen, even in the best regulated places, 
for whiskey makes men drunk and worse than bestial 
in the "toniest" as well as the "lowest" of saloons all 
these preclude the possibility of their being regarded as 
fit places for women. 

It may be objected that hotels even the best of 
them have a " Ladies' Entrance," also. " Surely," 
says the remonstrant, " you would not assert that 
' no decent woman ought to set foot ' therein"? 

Think a moment! What lies back of the fact? 
Is it not the existence of the hotel bar and the density 
of tobacco smoke in the main office? And has modern 
civilization made the rotunda of even a "first-class "hotel 
an altogether pleasant, cleanly place fora woman to enter? 

There are many saloons in this city where scenes 
of shame may be witnessed all the time. One sa- 
loon, and it is by no means the only one, in the heart of 
the business section of the city, seems to do a far more 
thriving trade in this " harlot compartment " portion of 
the house than over the bar, and its trade there is by 
no means inconsiderable. As one stands at the bar, if 
he turns his eyes to the other end he will there see a 
passageway leading off to these " cubby holes," and 
standing so as to be in full view are a couple or more 
of women who by lewd looks, winks, gestures and 
beckonings, etc., lure men into their dens, to debase and 
degrade them worse than they were before, and then 
send them out slinking by a "back alley." 

Yes, just look at the side doors and back alleys in 
and out of which the frequenters of these places may 
slide. 

Come here to this saloon. This is the front en- 



42 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

trance. Now walk around the corner here is the side 
entrance. Let us enter. There is a man who ha's spent 
his money and is too " mellow " to be allowed to go out 
at either of these entrances, so he finds an exit by the 
alley, which brings him out at the other side of the 
block. 

Hell itself could not be more crafty than the sa- 
loon-keeper in designing plans to catch the unwary and 
get rid of him when he has lost his vahie viz.: his 
hard cash. 

How is it that in most of the saloons the walls 
are decorated (?) with lascivious pictures? ''An- 
dromache Tied to the Rocks," " Venus at the Bath," 
** The Sleeping Courtesan," " Our Annette," and other 
subjects, the chief attraction of which is the central fig- 
ure of an entirely nude woman? Call them works of 
art if you will, they provoke comments from the drink- 
ing bystanders that must make devils chuckle with 
delight. 

In one of the most "respectable" saloons of this 
city, a place where many reputable and prominent bus- 
iness men may daily be seen, there are pictures that 
would disgrace the vilest bagnio or house of prostitution 
in the world. 

We boldly affirm, and defy truthful contradiction, 
that the saloon is hand in hand with the brothel the 
one feeds and ministers to the other. They are twin 
monsters, vying with each other to see which can lead 
the greater number of human beings to destruction. 

Another feature of the saloon business must not be 
overlooked. Whence the philanthropy of these men 
who advertise " free lunch all day," " hot soup from 1 1 
to 2," " an egg with every drink," " red-hots all day," 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 43 

and all this generous feeding of their patrons? The 
grocer does not seek to induce me to trade with him by 
advertising free lunches, nor does the baker and candle- 
stick maker. How is it the beer-seller is so generous 
and philanthropic? Let us look and see if we can find 
a reason, or more than one reason. 

First of all, watch the bartender as he draws the 
beer. One of our commissioners noted the number 
of drinks drawn from a half barrel and counted 261, 
and the barrel was on tap and had been drawn from be- 
fore he began to count. In a conversation with the 
barkeeper he asked how much the barrel held, and was 
told that this was but a half barrel and contained sixteen 
gallons. 

"And how many drinks do you suppose you can 
get from half a barrel ? " 

" Oh, I haven't any idea! I couldn't tell you at 
all!" 

" Can't you give a rough kind of a guess? You've 
been at this business a long time, I should imagine, and 
surely you can give me some kind of an idea." 

After figuring awhile the answer was: "Well, 
it'll be about 560 drinks!" 

Here was figuring with a vengeance. Had we 
ever ventured such a statement we should have been 
charged with the grossest exaggeration and wildest ex- 
travagance. So to bring the matter to reasonable com- 
pass, suppose we estimate that instead of 560 there were 
but 360 drinks in the half barrel. At 5 cents a drink 
that is a total of $18 for a half barrel, or $36 for the full 
32 gallon barrel. 

It must not be thought that these are the figures 
upon which our former estimates were based ; they are 



44 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

just given to show how a skillful beer-drawer can draw 
in the nickels by handing out the froth with a little 
basis of beer in the glass, so that there is plenty of mar- 
gin for free lunches when the drinks are thus served. 

What intelligent man would submit to be thus 
swindled in buying sugar or flour, or any of the neces- 
saries of life? But in the hands of the saloon-keeper he 
is blind and dumb. His "manliness" will not allow 
him to protest against this open robbery on the part of 
the well dressed, white-aproned, sleek-faced gentleman 
(?) behind the bar, whose immaculate, diamond-studded 
shirt-front would lead one instinctively to exclaim, 
" Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these!" He is always smooth-voiced and full of 
pleasant words for every person, provided he has 
the cash to sp^nd for "beverages," but, let the poor, 
besotted wretch who has lost all his cash and has noth- 
ing left but his insatiable appetite for alcohol dare to 
show his face, and at once the scene changes. 

Many of the saloons are owned by the large brew- 
ers, whose power and influence render it an easy thing 
to secure a license for any abandoned scoundrel who 
will be a willing tool in their hands. Thus these 
brewer-owned saloons become the hatching places for 
all kinds of foul conspiracies, political and otherwise^ 
from eg*gs sown there by the men in power the brew- 
ers who own the keepers, body, mind and soul. And 
these brewers often pose as public benefactors. They 
point with pride to their great charities and the like, 
forgetful of the fact that to the clear-eyed they stand 
as worse than highway robbers posing in the guise of 
philanthropists. With both hands, 364 days in the year, 
they rob and pillage their poor victims, who are so 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 45 

t)linded by their devilish arts as to be willing to be thus 
plundered not only, alas! of money, but of health, po- 
sition, character, honor and religion. Then on the 
365th day they pose as sweet angels of charity and 
point with glowing pride to their benevolent acts. 

Other men, not content with the wicked revenues 
gained from the demoralization of good citizens in one 
saloon, establish several of their branch establishments 
of hell in various parts of the city, and thus by multi- 
plying their traps capture more of the unwary. 

There is a saloon under one of the newspaper 
offices of this city where one night about fourteen 
boys and girls, ages varying from 14 to 17, were seen 
to enter. The girls were in short dresses, and the boys 
without " down " on their upper lips. The keeper of 
this " hole," it is said, has boasted that he built a fine 
business structure in Chicago out of the " froth " on the 
beer he served. 

And we are told that when the newspaper propri- 
etors took possession of the offices above they offered 
him a bonus of $10,000 to relinquish his lease, but as it 
covers a period extending past the time of the World's 
Fair, he said he would not dispose of it for less than a 
sum which to thousands of men in Chicago would be a 
fortune. 

In a recent number of Our Day, of which Joseph 
Cook, the indefatigable reformer, is editor, appeared 
the following: 

" Without considering the saloon in connection with American 
politics, its social influence is enough to condemn it forever. As a 
class, saloon-keepers in our country are of the lowest characters. 
They are impure, profane, irreligious, vulgar, and often criminal; 
and their saloons are like themselves. In no place, as here out- 
side of the bagnio is the atmosphere so saturated with all that is 



46 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

vicious and corrupting. Here one meets with the world's filthiest 
characters, filthiest pictures, and filthiest conversation, because here 
congregate society's filthiest souls. The American saloon is the 
rendezvous of thieves, and cut-throats, and gamblers. Bummers, 
tramps, dead beats throng round them as flies around the paper pre- 
pared for their destruction. Here it is are planned our prize-fights. 
Here come the distributers of obscene literature to ply their wretched 
traffic; here come the ' boodlers ' to arrange for the corruption of our 
elections here in these ' Pest Holes ' of infamy. Yet it is a la- 
mentable fact that the principal patrons of the saloon are young 
men. Into a single saloon in Cincinnati, passed 252 men within an 
hour 236 of whom were young men. In New Albany, Indiana, 
in one hour and a half, on a certain evening, 1,109 persons entered 
19 of 76 saloons, 983 of whom were young men and boys. C. H. 
Yatman stood on the streets of Newark, N. J., one day, and in five 
minutes counted 62 young men going into one saloon. He passed 
his watch to a friend and asked him to stand and count for thirty 
minutes. In that time 592 entered the saloon, most of them being 
young men. Yet this was only one of hundreds of saloons in that 
city. The two following are from Richard Morse's ' Young Men of 
our Cities': 'A city of 17,000 population, 3,000 young men; 
i ,02 1, over one-fourth, entered 49 saloons in one hour one Saturday 
night.' ' A city of 38,000 population, 6,000 young men ; on a cer- 
tain Saturday evening 10 per cent, of thsm visited seven of the 128 
saloons.' 

"In Milwaukee on a certain evening, 468 persons entered a sin- 
gle saloon, nearly all of whom were young men and boys." 

We can heartily endorse all that is here said against 
the saloon. The sad facts stated of the effect upon young 
men can be equalled by Chicago statistics, for here, as 
elsewhere, the hellish saloon has a fearful influence over 
our young men. 

There are many regions of Chicago which are 
saloon-infested to such an extent that if one were to give 
a tabulated list of the houses of business in order as they 
occur, it would be somewhat in this style: SALOON, 
dry-goods, bakery, SALOON, tobacco and cigars, grocery, 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 4/ 

SALOON, dime museum, SALOON, restaurant, SALOON, 
shoe store, tobacco and cigars, SALOON, ticket office, 

SALOON, SALOON, SALOON, Concert hall, SALOON, SA- 
LOON, restajrant, SALOON, tobacco and cigars, SALOON, 
theater, SALOON, tobacco and cigars. 

On State Street, for instance, from Van Buren to 
the Twelfth Street viaduct, there are SIXTY-SIX (66) 
saloons. On Van Buren, from State to Fifth Avenue, 
TWENTY-TWO (22). On Fourth Avenue, in two 
blocks, there are TWENTY-FIVE (25). On Dearborn 
Street, TWENTY-FIVE (25) within two blocks. On 
Madison Street, from State Street to Halstead, there 
are SEVENTY-THREE (73). On Clark, from Polk to 
Van Buren, two blocks, FIFTY-TWO (52). On Cottage 
Grove Avenue, from 39th to 22nd, SIXTY-SIX (66). 
On Wabash Avenue, from 22nd to Jackson Street, 
THIRTY-FIVE (35). On Halsted, from Lake to Blue 
Island Avenue, SEVENTY-SIX (76). 

Now these are merely given as samples. The dis- 
tricts have not been especially chosen. There may be 
other ph*ces equally bad, or worse. If any reader will 
sit and calmly contemplate what this fearful array of 
saloons pestiferous distributers of moral, mental and 
physical ruin really means, he will find such cause for 
genuine alarm as to lead him, at least, to try to do 
something to crush the whole saloon system. 

We have shown that there are 5,600 saloons in this 
city. Look at the power in politics such figures repre- 
sent. Each saloon will average three votes one for 
the proprietor and two for assistants three in all. This 
gives a total voting power of 16,800. SIXTEEN THOU- 
SAND EIGHT HUNDRED VOTES cast as the vote of one 
man for one purpose, and that purpose the protection of 



48 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

the saloon. These men have no other politics than the 
perpetuation of their own unholy traffic, and in deter- 
mining the fitness of any man in this city who wishes 
office, the first, and about the only question they ask is, 
" Is he a friend to the saloon? If he is, vote him in! 
If he is not, vote him out!" And if you add to this 
number all those who are in trades connected with the 
saloon, and therefore in a measure in sympathy with it, 
and dependent upon it, there is such a vast voting power 
under the control of the business that there is no won- 
der it is found almost impossible to cope with it. 

We hear much of men being victims to drink, but, 
alas! in this Christian city there are many cases that 
come under the observation of those who care to look 
for them, of women who are as absolutely enslaved 
by it as ever negro was enslaved in the South. 

Last year, in Chicago alone, thirty-two girls and 
women attempted suicide in the station houses. Drink 
and debauchery had rendered life not worth the attempt 
of living to them, and it was only by the kind and lov- 
ing attention of the police matrons and others that they 
were spared to endeavor to reform. This tells its own 
story. 

Few girls who indulge in the use of intoxicating 
liquors, know the dangers to which they are exposing 
themselves. It is not seldom, but often, that scenes like 
that described by Rudyard Kipling occur, and not only 
in Buffalo, but in Chicago. He saw two respectable 
looking, refined young ladies, enter a beer-hall in the 
company of two young gentlemen, and he saw them all 
leave in a state of beastly intoxication. This same fear- 
ful thing has been seen in Chicago many times, and 
when a girl is in such a condition she is a prey to those 



SALOONS A]S 7 D THEIR HABITUES. 49 

who seek her virtue. If she is alone, human blood- 
hounds will track her until she is where they may devour 
her, and truly death would be preferable to that to 
which such hideous fiends subject her. 

In talking with one woman who has been before the 
magistrates of Chicago over and over again for drunk- 
enness, and whose name is familiar to every newspaper 
man in the city, our commissioner learned the fact that 
the woman has fought desperately against her enslav- 
ing habit, and the last time she came from prison she 
said that when arrested she was " crazy, angry, despair- 
ing, desperate, and had thoroughly made up her mind 
to enter a house of prostitution, for she could no longer 
struggle; she must sink, sink, sink!" But kind friends 
met her at that time, cared for her, and now she is at 
work on a farm outside of the city, away from its temp- 
tations and in the home of those who will lovingly help 
her battle with the fierce fires of desire which consume 
her. 

Here is a case of degradation and reform well 
known to some people in this city. A lady, daughter 
of a very eminent jurist a prominent educator in the 
east her family of the upper circles in Chicago and as 
well connected as any person in the city to-day, fell into 
the whirlpool of drunkenness. She went deeper and 
deeper until she became a regular street drunkard, vile 
and filthy and not fit to be seen. Her friends all cast 
her off, but one sister, who stood by her until her hus- 
band positively forbade his wife to receive the outcast 
at his house. It was not an unusual thing for her to be 
in the hands of the police, and on the last occasion of her 
arrest a friend of her father's, the Judge, went to the 
judge who was to hear her case, and stating the matter 



5O SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

to him asked that she be sent to the House of the Good 
Shepherd. When the poor drunkard was informed by 
the lieutenant where she was to be taken she most pos- 
itively refused to go there, on the ground that she was 
educated a Protestant, and said she would prefer being 
sent to the Bridewell. Her wish was acceded to, and 
whilst she was in prison she was led to resolve to lead a 
new life. On her release she proved her resolve, and 
for years has been a most earnest worker for the reform 
of others. She has regained her lost position and her 
honored station, and although she never seeks to move 
in society circles, she knows her talents and accomplish- 
ments, now that she is perfectly reformed, give her the 
freedom of these circles should she ever wish to enter 
them. But she is more happy in doing good to those 
who are in degradation and sin, than in such a butterfly 
existence, and in that work she prefers to live, and will 
undoubtedly die. 

In one of the down-town restaurants some months 
ago two " society ladies " sat in a " private compart- 
ment" taking' lunch. Their menu, if written, would 

have been : 

Wine, 
Beer, 
Wine, 

More Wine, 
And Nothing More. 

On the occasion of their discovery by our commis- 
sioner the cheque signed in payment was for $4.50. 
They began by going there once every two weeks. 
At the time when this was written they were to be 
found in this "respectable" restaurant (connected, 
however, with a saloon) twice each week. 

The above is a solitary instance of hundreds of such 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 51 

cases occurring in Chicago from week to week, and 
they are not confined to one class alone. It is not only 
those who are born in, and surrounded by, circum- 
stances of poverty and degradation, that form vicious 
habits, but the large class of women too common, 
alas! in Chicago who devote their lives to an endless 
round of dress and finery, frivolity and excitement, 
stifling God-given instincts of purity and holiness. 
Spurning home cares, denying the claims of duty, 
they are " idle, wandering about from house to house; 
and not only idle, but tattlers also and busy- 
bodies," they seek "pleasure" in a covert manner by 
wooing the wine-cup under the pretense of "taking 
lunch with a friend down town." From the excite- 
ment of the wine-cup is but a step to "flirting" with 
the " handsome man," who is ever alert for just such 
prey. The flirting naturally leads to the "appoint- 
ment" then more wine the fall, which means the de- 
struction of marital happiness, the utter ruin of the 
home, and the ever-grinding Chicago divorce mill com- 
pletes the first act of this domestic tragedy. 

That men are also guilty of breaches of marital 
faith under the guise of "business appointments down 
town," is so true and so well known as to call forth lit- 
tle comment, but, strange to say, the world covers a 
man with the mantle of charity, whilst upon the woman 
it pours out the vials of its wrath in strongest condem- 
nation and dooms her to social ostracism. 

What must be the result of such demoralizing hab- 
its ? Such thoughtless mothers are not only ruining their 
own happiness and that of their families, but they are 
entailing fearful consequences upon their children. 
Many boys and gir-k are not only born under such con- 



52 SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 

ditions, but they receive with their mothers' milk the 
desire for alcoholic drinks, and thus a new genera 
tion of drunkards is made. 

It is soon easy to discover that the bottle business 
of the wine and liquor, as well as of the beer, interests 
is on the increase, and as this trade grows, so in propor- 
tion grows the breaking up of family life, the degrad- 
ing of manhood, the breaking down of womanly virtue 
and the destruction of all that is pure, noble and good 
in our youth. 

One of the most demoralizing forms of the saloon 
business in its relation to woman is the "beer garden." 
Numbers of these " gardens " dot the city, and in sum- 
mer time boys and girls, young men and women are 
enticed into them by the music and the promise of 
dancing, singing, romping and pleasant out-door amuse- 
ment. After drinking the alcoholic beverages provided 
in these places, conscience and purity are readily 
drugged into insensibility; and then, passion and desire 
inflamed and clamorous, the devil's most seductive temp- 
tation, comes before them, and, too often, the night of 
the visit to the beer garden ends in the debauch of the 
house of assignation, from whence few girls ever emerge 
to any other than a life of continuous unchastity. Ev- 
ery beer garden in Chicago is an open foe to the honor 
of every young man, and the purity of every young girl 
who comes within reach of its influence. 

What the saloon has done and is now doing in Chi- 
cago, and elsewhere, is well expressed by the eloquent 
words of an anonymous writer: 

"The saloon cuts down youth in its vigor, manhood in its 
strength, and age in its weakness. 

"It breaks the father's heart, bereaves the doting mother, ex- 



SALOONS AND THEIR HABITUES. 53 

tinguishes natural affections, erases conjugal love, blots out filial at- 
tachments, and blasts parental hopes, and brings down mourning 
age in sorrow to the grave. 

"It produces weakness, not strength; sickness, not health; 
death, not life. 

" It makes wives, widows; children, orphans; fathers, fiends 
and all of them paupers and beggars. 

"It feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes epidemics, in- 
vites cholera, imparts pestilence and embraces consumption. 

" It covers the land with idleness, misery and crime. 

" It fills your jails, supplies your almshouses and demands your 
asylums. 

"It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels and cherishes 
riots. 

" It crowds your penitentiaries, and furnishes victims to your 
scaffolds. 

" It is the life-blood of the gambler, the element of the burglar, 
the prop of the highwayman, and the support of the midnight incen- 
diary. 

' ' It countenances the liar, respects the thief, esteems the bias- 
phemer. 

" It violates obligations, reverences fraud, honors infamy. 

" It defames benevolence, hates love, scorns virtue and slan- 
ders innocence. 

"It incites the father to butcher his helpless offspring; helps 
the husband to massacre his wife, and the child to grind the parri- 
cidal axe. 

"It burns up men, consumes women, detests life, curses God 
and despises Heaven. 

"It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the jury-box, and 
ttains the judicial ermine. 

"It degrades the citizen, debases the legislature, dishonors the 
statesman, and disarms the patriot . 

" It brings shame, not honor ; terror, not safety ; despair, not 
hope ; misery, not happiness ; and with the malevolence of a fiend 
it calmly surveys its frightful desolation and, unsatisfied with its 
havoc, it poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights confi- 
dence, slays reputation, and wipes out national honor ; then curses 
the world and laughs at its ruin. 

" It does all that and more it murders the soul. 

"It is the sum of all villainies, the father of all crimes, the 
mother of all abomination, the devil's best friend, and God's worst 
enemy." 



and Museums. 



"The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape." 

Shakespeare. 

" He must have a long spoon that must eat with the 
devil." Shakespeare. 

AT the outset of this chapter let it be clearly un- 
derstood that with the managers of the better 
class of concert halls and museums, we have na 
controversy. They are constantly striving to entertain 
and elevate their patrons, and are fairly successful. 
They ought to be encouraged. Their work in this 
direction is commended by a large section of the peo- 
ple, many of them church-goers and professing Chris- 
tians. 

But these better-class places in Chicago can be 
counted on the fingers of one hand, or, to be fully gen- 
erous, on those of both hands. 

And what of the rest? 

The entertainments provided therein are a disgrace 
to the city. The demoralization that flows from the 
abominable scenes enacted upon the stage to the large 
crowd of boys and girls, young men and women, who 
nightly attend the theaters, can never be estimated. 
And this is not the narrow opinion of those who are 

54 



THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 55 

church-goers and who know little of the stage. The 
statements of our commissioners are borne out in most 
emphatic language by such an eminent actor as Mr. 
John Gilbert, who, in his article in the North Ameri- 
can Review, thus speaks of the theater. Every word, 
and much stronger words, can, with perfect justice, be 
applied to the Chicago theater: 

"I believe the present condition of the drama, both from a 
moral and an artistic point of view, to be a subject for regret. A 
large number of our theaters are managed by speculators who have 
no love for true art, and who, in the production of 'attractions,' con- 
eider only the question of dollars and cents. With that class it 
seems to matter little whether a play has any literary merit; it is 
sufficient if it is 'sensational' and full of ' startling situations.' Many 
of the plays that have been adapted from the French are open to the 
severest criticism on the ground of immorality. I say, as an actor, 
without any hesitation, that such plays have a very bad influence on 
nearly all people, especially the young. Some argue that, even in 
these productions, vice is punished in the end; but when a whole 
play is filled with amorous intrigue, and fairly bristles with conjugal 
infidelity when, in short, all the characters are infamous, there is 
no question in my mind but that its influence is bad." 

Our commissioners report that many boys and girls 
now in prison cells, learned their first lessons of the 
vices and crimes that have imprisoned them, in the the- 
ater. By the constant witnessing of such scenes upon 
the stage they became familiarized with vice to such art 
extent that it began to exert an unconscious influence 
upon them, to their moral deterioration, and finally cul- 
minated in their ruin. 

There seems to be no restriction as to the age of 
the children allowed to see the most degrading and dis- 
gusting of performances, and in the lowest of these 
places it is often astonishing and pit4ful to see the num- 
ber of young boys and girls who are present. 



56 THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 

That " all work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy " is as true as it is old will be readily conceded, but 
it does seem an awful thing that in this great, church- 
dotted city of Chicago the chief place of attraction to 
thousands upon thousands of its young people is the 
low theater. 

In their advertising the managers clearly reveal 
their diabolical plans by pandering to all that is lustful 
in human nature. " The nude in art," also " the nude 
in nature," are their chief attractions. The walls of the 
city are placarded with announcements that call your 
attention to 

"Latest Parisian Dancers." 
" Grecian Beauties." 
"Oriental Beauties." 

" Gaiety Girls." 
"20 Beautiful Women." 

" Live Statuary." 
"Creole Beauties, '' etc., etc. 

To make money, at any and all hazards, is the first 
and only object of the proprietors, and to secure this 
they sink below the level of the brutes in the character 
of the exhibitions which they furnish every day of the 
year. The wonder is that the audiences do not revolt 
at these disgusting performances. 

Well may the legislators of Minnesota and Penn- 
sylvania desire legislation which will compel women to 
cover their nakedness, and managers of theaters to re- 
spect the decencies of civilized society, for their object 
seems to be to try just how little clothes a woman may 
wear in a stage exhibition without subjecting herself 
and them to arrest the one for indecent exposure and 
the other for permitting it. 

Sunday is the " gala day " for these damnable vice 



THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 57 

schools. Not content with giving lessons in criminality 
all the week, and throwing in an extra lesson on Satur- 
day, they are so anxious to educate the boys and girls 
to become vicious and criminal that they have tivo "sess- 
ions" on Sunday, one in the afternoon and another in 
the evening. At the latter performances it is a common 
thing to see on the outside a placard bearing the legend, 
" Standing room only." 

The services of the churches on Sunday are never 
so crowded as are these dens! What a sight it would 
be to see a sign at the door of the churches, " Standing 
room only." The few regular attendants would be al- 
most paralyzed by such a notice, for a crowded congre- 
gation is the exception and not the rule. 

The concert halls of Chicago are mostly saloons 
and houses of prostitution in disguise. Men and women 
are attracted to them by the music, and before long the 
vile influences that dwell in such holes take hold upon 
them and drag them into the fearful vortex of dissipa- 
tion and sensuality. The music is the bait which al- 
lures the victim to drink and lustful pleasures. The 
reports of our commissioners, who went at different 
times to some of the vilest of these vile dens which pro- 
fess to be theaters, but are concert halls and saloons as 
well, are here given in extenso, so that the people of 
Chicago may definitely know what exists in their midst. 

These reports are given almost without alteration, 
and the first one is by a prominent clergyman, well 
known in this and neighboring cities: 

" Speaking of the dark places of Chicago, it is difficult to go 
amiss of them. They are to be found at every corner. Some dis- 
play of atrocious crookedness may be seen on nearly every street. 
But some of these places are so foul, the manner of life the spirit 
in which things are done in these dens, is so akin to the mind of 



58 THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 

those who have absolutely rejected all light, that they simply beg- 
gar description. Sam Jones, in trying to portray the perverseness 
of human character, said' ' Men are like some of the sticks in the 
southernwood so crooked they can't lie still.' And surely, in the 
unrestfulness of wicked plotting and planning to allure men and 
women to ruin, there are those in Chicago who are never still. 

"On the busiest thoroughfare of this ceaselessly busy city is a 
thoroughly advertised theater, where every square inch of space 
from basement to loft is devoted to the basest sort of vileness and 
thievery. 

"Your commissioner, in company with a friend and fellow- 
worker, paid the ' quarter 'demanded and entered to see the theatri- 
cal performance. As we entered the hall it was almost blue with 
smoke, and it required considerable grit to sit down by the side of 
men who were puffing out clouds of the strong-smelling vapors as if 
they were volcanoes in a state of active eruption. 

" We listened to music, furnished by a string band, svhich was 
almost equal to that given on the street corner by the hand organ. 
Gave attentive ear to the so-called speeches, dialogues and songs 
rendered by men, and young, undeveloped girls. Much of the per- 
formance had a double meaning, a dirty double -entendre^ and such 
' touches of life ' were always received by the audience with great 
laughter and applause. 

" This performance continued, to the evident delight of the aud- 
itors, for nearly two hours. When it closed we were all urged, by 
one who had learned well his speech, to go upstairs into the concert 
hall) where a free concert would be given. A large number crowded 
the stairs to the upper rooms and we followed. Upon entering the 
room we found that instead of music being the attraction, beer, wine 
and women were the centripetal forces. The coarsest of Chicago's 
prostitutes were there, twenty or twenty-five in number, soliciting 
men to go to the bar and drink with them, or asking them if they 
wouldn't like to go down into the basement, buy them a bottle of 
beer and see the fancy dance. Questioning elicited the fact that if 
we each paid $i for a bottle of beer we should receive tickets to see 
a VERY fancy dance called the can-can. 

"We refused to be escorted by the 'ladies,' but being desirous 
of seeing the dance, walked down alone into the basement, and see- 
ing a number of men chaperoned by the females who had solicited 



THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 59 

ns, enter a door, we followed. It led into a passageway, on either 
ide of which were a number of compartments containing a table for 
the beer and glasses, and a few chairs. A man who evidently acted 
as a ' watch-dog ' asked us ' did we wish to see some ladies ?' I re- 
plied ' we wished to see the dance . ' 

" ' Please step into this room,' said he, ' and I' 11 soon send some 
ladies to you.' 

" We entered the room and in a few moments the ' ladies ' ap- 
peared. 

Alas, for the degradation ! 

"They urged us to send for beer. We asked, 'Could we not 
see the dance on payment of the dollar without ordering the beer?' 
No ! The only way to see the dance was to pay the dollar for the 
beer, and then checks would be given to us which would admit us to 
the can-can room.' 

" We paid our money. The beers were brought, but no chocks, 
and after drinking a few sips the ladies left us to find more congenial 
companions, whilst we were left to sit and console each other for 
the loss of our dollars. 

"My friend went to the 'watch-dog' and enquired for the 
checks for the dance-room. He was told to go and enquire up stairs 
which meant out of doors. We then went to the bar for there 
was a bar in the basement as well as in the loft and once again the 
checks were demanded. The barkeeper, the cashier, the watch-dog 
and finally the man who seemed to be the ' boss ' of this ' hell ' wer 
questioned, and each one lied and shuffled urtil the last named gen- 
tleman (?) gave the parting shot, which was to the effect that ' there 
was a deal of crying over the loss of a great big dollar. 1 Said he, 
' You wasted over five dollars of the women's time and then want 
your dollar back.' 

" We retired, acknowledging ourselves worsted at least in one 
attempt at sight-seeing. 

" You will say, ' Good enough ! stay away from such places. 
Jt served you right !' 

"We will suffer your judgment and gladly part with the dollar, 
if you Christian parents, moralists and objectors'of any or whatever 
name, will abandon your supercilious, nonsensical statements that 
such places do not exist, and will admit that your boy and girl may 
be ruined by just such resorts. They are here, and here to stay! 



60 THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 

Open day and night, Sunday and week-day, all the year round. 
Shameless women coming from every corner of the world to meet 
debauched men, whose eyes and hearts see, and want only, the vilest 
of vile things. 

''It is nauseating in the extreme to think of and write about 
such things, but how shall we otherwise work for the salvation of 
the boys and girls, young men and women, than to expose these hid- 
den traps which are constantly gorged with living prey human 
souls who when once entrapped are in danger of eternal hell? 

" Even though we did not see the dance we saw the abominable 
and devilish character of the place ; we ourselves were deceived and 
lied to, and our money taken from us under false pretences, and thus 
it is that the foul fiend prepares men for hell by establishing such 
training schools on earth as the one whose horrors we have but feebly 
and inadequately described." 

Not satisfied with this report, knowing that only 
a portion of the iniquity had been exposed, we sent an- 
other commissioner who was more successful, -vide his 
subjoined report: 

" To this resort a visit was paid on a Saturday evening, when it 
was supposed everything would be in 'full blast." To the uninitiated 
the outward appearance would lead to the belief that the house was 
a legitimate family theatre for the working man, but a visit to the 
interior qnickly dispelled that idea. On one side of the box office 
was conspicuously displayed a large-lettered sign, which conveyed 
the intelligence that tickets could be purchased for 10, 15, 25, 35 
and 50 cents, and that whole boxes could be obtained for $4.00, 
while seats in the same boxes could be had for 75 cents. In this 
case 25 cents were paid for each ticket, and our party consisting of 
three men was shown through the front door, and there informed 
that seats were on the second floor. Upstairs we went, and were 
met by an usher, who politely took us down one side of the house, 
to a door leading, as we thought, to our seats. Handing us our 
checks, he informed us that we should 'go up those stairs and 
go along that passage-way.' As he spoke, he threw open the door, 
and we saw the stairs he had reference to. There were about five 
steps, and they led up to a passage, or, it might properly be called a 
scaffold. This was on a level with the tops of the wings belonging 



THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 6 1 

to the stage scenes, and was so close to the ceiling that a person 
walking through could not do so in an upright position. At the 
entrance to this passage we were met by two girls, in decolleite cos- 
tume, who politely invited us, as follows: 'Won't you come 
downstairs and see the can-can danced by twelve naked young 
ladies? ' This was a surprise to us. To be thus frankly invited, 
without any solicitation whatever on our part, to witness this crown- 
ing iniquity, convinced us that this disgusting performance was not 
a special, but a regular part of the programme. As our mission was 
one of inquiry, we consented, and were trippingly escorted through 
the passage and down a flight of stairs to the basement. This local- 
ity was divided into several rooms, and it was into one of these 
rooms that we were ushered. There was also in the basement a bar, 
which did a thriving business, having as its patrons the habitues of 
the place and the occasional callers and sight-seers. On our arrival 
in the room in which the dance was to be held, we found some ten 
or twelve men, most of them respectable looking, some of them 
young and some of them old, all in eager expectancy awaiting the 
arrival of the "ladies." Before they made their appearance, how- 
ever, beer and other liquors were ordered, and then the collection 
was taken up for the benefit of the dancers. It seems a certain 
amount of money was required to be in hand before the dancers 
would appear. (It cost us in all $3.00 for our share of the expense, 
not including our admission fee.) As soon as the required amount 
was subscribed, the girls trooped in, and immediately commenced 
their exhibition, which consisted of a most disgusting dance, per- 
formed by over a dozen girls in a state of absolute nudity. Horror- 
stricken though we were, we determined to see the thing to a con- 
clusion, and, when the dance was over, submitted, with the rest of 
those present, to open and personal solicitations from these aban- 
doned women. 

" Aside from the abominable exhibition, the atmosphere was 
close enough to cause the stoutest person unused to it to turn sick. 
Cigars were going in full blast and tobacco juice was freely expecto- 
rated over all parts of the room . When nothing more could be ob- 
tained from the visitors they were requested to make room for an- 
other edition of innocents. 

" From there we finally found our way to the theater proper 
nd for some time sat and looked at the ' entertainment.' From the 



62 THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 

program we learned that the first part would be the 'grand opening, ' 
introducing the ' entire company,' and when the curtain finally rolled 
up we had the pleasure (?) of seeing the 'entire company,' consisting 
of seven girls, two end-men in 'cork,' and three supernumeraries, 
seated in the regulation minstrel style. Here, as in other parts of 
the house, cigars and pipes were freely used, and also chewing to- 
bacco, judging from the condition of the floor. Intermingled through- 
out the entire program was a mass of obscene jokes and sayings, and 
after listening for an hour and a half to this wretched performance, 
it was with a feeling of relief that we bade the house of vice flourish- 
ing under the name of ' theater,' adieu. 

Is it necessary to give any further reports upon the 
character of these places? The one reported upon does 
not stand alone. There are many others and their ex- 
treme vileness is only a question of minor degree. 

And yet, there are many pure-minded girls, who 
look towards the stage of the Chicago theater as a de- 
sirable place to secure a livelihood. Let me commend 
to them the wise words of Mr. Clement Scott, a lead- 
ing theatrical critic of London, who, in answer to a 
question on this line, replied: 

"A woman may take a header into a whirlpool 
and be miraculously saved but then, she may be 
drowned. If a girl knows how to take care of herself 
she can go anywhere; but I should be sorry to expose 
modesty to the shock of that worst kind of temptation, 
a frivolous disregard of womanly purity. One out of a 
hundred may be safe; but then she must hear things 
that she had better not listen to, and witness things she 
had better not see. In every class of life women are 
exposed to danger and temptations, but far more in the 
theater than elsewhere." 

We charge the Chicago theaters with being the 
home of disgusting nastiness; and the faces of all true 
men and women should be resolutely set against wit- 



THEATERS, CONCERT HALLS, MUSEUMS. 63 

nessing the degrading spectacles that they generally 
present. 

In the " museums," too, all that is horrible, mon- 
strous and deformed in the human body, is exhibited. 
They are catering to the morbid curiosity of the animal 
in human nature, and the crowds which visit them are 
lured there by specious and misleading advertisements, 
cunningly devised to draw the money from the pockets 
of the ignorant and debased. 

Another feature connected with all these atrocious 
places is the close proximity that exists between them 
and the brothel and saloon. These three form the trinity 
of the devil, and where one is you are sure to find the 
other two not far away. 

Our commissioners are a unit in affirming it as their 
solemn conviction, fearful though it be to state it that 
the evil which these vile places of Chicago engender 
reaches further in its influence than all the good which 
flows from all the sermons preached by all the pastors 
of all the churches \>f this great city. 



Immoral Dives . 



" We do not despise all those who have vices, but we 
despise those who are without any virtues." 

Rochefoucault. 

" The beastly owners and frequenters of these places 
think and speak devilishness only. They incredulously 
sneer at manly virtue; and woman's ruin affords them a 
theme over which they chuckle in devilish glee and display 
their highest wit and choicest humor." 

UNDER this head come those places which are 
neither saloons, theaters, concert halls, museums 
or houses of prostitution, and yet have no other 
than immoral tendencies. They are the feeders, the 
adjuncts to the worst of the other places of this class. 
Here young men are guided to the houses of death; their 
imaginations are inflamed by vile pictures; their minds 
made the receptacles of impure thoughts. 

Our commissioner found several of these places. 
The following is substantially his report: 

There are several of this kind of dives in Chicago. 
On one of the main streets, where thousands of people 
pass in'a day, there is a notice of a show for "gentle- 
men only." The announcements clearly state that " the 
nude in art " is displayed. There are "Parisian girls,' 
'' opium dreams," etc., but it would take a depraved 
:mind indeed that could fully imagine the horrors and 
bestiality of the pictures shown within. 



IMMORAL DIVES. 65 

Picture after picture of nude women in every kind 
ef posture, some of which are as vilely suggestive as 
devilish ingenuity can make them. Everything to 
arouse and excite to the highest degree the fierce fires 
of passion in man, is cunningly and seductively placed 
before the young and old who enter this veritable ante- 
room of hell. 

Not far away in a basement is another place even 
more vile, where boys lads of 12, 14, and 16 years 
as well as large crowds of adults, have been seen. An 
electric bell is kept constantly ringing to call the atten- 
tion of the passer-by, and immediately his eyes go in 
search of the bell they fall upon large picture frames 
full of photographs of perfectly nude women in the 
most suggestive positions. 

A number of notices entice him on; it is free; a 
sparring match occasionally is held; sporting books are 
n sale; a fine collection of such photographs as these; 
5,000 rare, rich, racy, nude and comic pictures are to be 
seen inside. The victim, urged on by the passions 
aroused within him by the sight of these hellish tempt- 
ings, goes inside. Here, as he looks at the licentious 
pictures, a young man of pleasant address steps up and 
tells him he may take his choice for 15 cents. 

"Does he want anything spicy to read?" Here are 
all the latest works of the salacious writers of Europe 
and America. 

" Would he like a package of ' rich ' French cards?" 

" No, he never heard of them. What are they?" 

" Oh, they're transparent playing cards, which, 
when you hold them up to the light show lewd men 
and women in a nude condition in all kinds of attitudes." 



66 IMMORAL DIVES. 

A package is on the table labeled exactly as fol- 
lows: 



NEW YORK RACY PACKAGE. 

Don't buy this unless you want the 

RICHEST PACKAGE EVER SOLD FOR 

50 CENTS. 

Contains all the following spicy pieces: Adven- 
tures of a newly married couple, or their wedding 
night secrets. A bashful man's experience on his 
wedding night. The nuptial night (very rich). How 
to fascinate. A preacher's illustration. Sparking in 
the dark. Peeping Tom, the Stroller. Philosophy 
of hugging. Two rich love letters (read two ways). 
Alsocontans 

12 SPIRITED PICTURES 

Exhibiting a young couple before and after marriage. 
How to flirt. How to kiss deliciously. A number 
of French secrets for both ladies and gentlemen. 

Also a sample of "THE TICKLER," to please 
the gents. 



Of course the contents are bad, but in every way 
the package is a swindle. Its whole value is not one- 
half of a cent, merely consisting of two cards, upon one 
of which are two silly pictures, and upon the other a 
dirtily suggestive jingle; and a coarse sheet of paper 
upon which are printed even more dirtily suggestive 
instructions, secrets, etc. 

The "padding " of the package is a small book, is- 
sued by one of the " specialists " who make it their bus- 
iness to trade upon the fears of the young and vicious. 

And so it is with all this kind of show. The direct 
result of this exhibit is to send young men off to the 
numerous houses of prostitution which are close at hand. 



IMMORAL DIVES. 67 

Then, should contagion or other physical evil follow, 
th " doctor " h^s already put in his claim for a right 
to treat his newly-made patient. 

Can anything be more malignant and fiendish ? 
Could the evil one have put it into the hearts of men to 
more completely ruin all that is pure, and noble, and 
good in our bo#s than to do just what these men are 
doing? 

For that what we speak is within the strictest 
bounds of trnth, will be apparent when we further 
state that in one of these places we found "peep-holes" 
covered over with cloth, above which were the most 
licentiously suggestive directions. One raised the "cur- 
tain " and peeped in, and in one he was recommended 
to try a cigar, and in another was practically informed 
where he might go to gratify his evil desire. 

And all this close to the heart of the city, under 
the observation of passers-by, every hour of every day 
of the year openly, daringly pandering to the basest 
in man temptingly displaying its wares of hell to the 
young- -and with electric bell, pictures, music, etc., en- 
ticing them in. 

These are but samples of others that might be just 
as fully described of such bestial resorts in Chicago. 

Policemen walk by daily, and if they do not know, 
there is no excuse for their not knowing, the character 
o these pestiferous plague-spots. 

Is there no law to reach such Augean stables? 
And if there is a law, are there not men in Chicago of 
enough moral backbone to enforce it, if the police 
re derelict in their duty ? 

We have the profoundest sympathy for the man 
or woman who falls, and would help continually all such 



68 IMMORAL DIVES. 

persons desirous of reforming, but for these execrable 
wretches, the treatment of the Mafia gang in New 
Orleans is too good for them. They should be flayed 
alive with whips of living scorpions. Vile, foul, 
mephitic scoundrels, with wit and intelligence enough 
to pander to all that is lowest and vilest in mankind 
setting skilfully baited traps to catch the boys of our 
city, they should be treated as the venomous vipers they 
are, and, after a warning to desist, shot down like 
skunks if they ever dare to exhibit their soilure in 
Chicago again. 



Obscene Books, Pictures and 
A dvertisements. 



"I've heard that poison-sprinkled flowers 

Are sweeter in perfume 
Than when untouched by deadly dew, 

They opened in their bloom. 
I've heard that with the witches' song, 

Though harsh and rude it be, 
There blends a wild, mysterious strain 

Of weirdest harmony, 
So that the listener far away 

Must needs approach the ring 
Where, on the savage Lapland moors 

The demon chorus sing. 
And I believe the devil's voice 

Sinks deeper in the ear 
Than any whispers sent from Heaven, 

However soft and clear.' 1 

Aytoun. 



In Pompeii, when the ruins of that ancient city 
were unearthed, were found frescoes and pictures of a 
most sensual, lascivious and horrible character. Histo- 
rians have strongly commented upon the fearful state 
of morality these frescoes and similar things evidenced, 
and lifted up their hands in holy horror at the debased 
condition of these people. Our commissioners are al- 
most unanimous in declaring that in Chicago to-day 



>v rO OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 

there are to be found many thousands of pictures, many 
of them publicly and freely exposed, that are nearly as- 
\>ad in fact, and equally as bad in tendency, as these 
strongly reprobated Pompeiian frescoes. 

Reader, do you take in the full significance of this 
statement? In Pompeii two thousand years ago the 
conditions of life were very different from the condi- 
tions existent here. Nudity of body, with both male 
and female, until the age of puberty, made contempla- 
tion of the human form a common thing to them, and 
therefore not such an excitant to passion as it is with us. 

Nearly twenty decades of "civilization" and 
" Christianity " have passed since Pompeii's days of 
glory, and yet, ive, the refined, the Christian nation, 
the " land of the free, and the home of the brave," 
" the leading nation of the earth," in this city which is 
to be the center of the world at the Exposition of 1893, 
tve allow to be exposed for sale in our public windows 
photographs of nude women that are as dangerously 
suggestive as anything that ever disgraced the walls of 
u heathen " Pompeii. 

We do not utterly and completely condemn the 
" nude in art," but what art is there in the photograph 
of a naked prostitute lying or sitting in a most sugges- 
tive position, and without any grace or beauty to com- 
mend it? Such pictures have a most dangerous ten- 
dency. They stimulate and excite the imagination, and 
this, by the law of reflex action, causes physical excite- 
ment and desire which sets a young man afire with 
unholy passion, and sends him off, in many instances,, 
directly to the brothel. 

There are now in the hands of the publisher of 
this book a number of these photographs purchased by 



OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 71 

our commissioners in various dens of Chicago. In one 
of the principal streets these photographs are openly 
advertised on the sidewalk, where a large board has 
painted upon it the fact that downstairs there are 5,000 
Rich, Rare, Racy, Nude and Comic pictures on exhi- 
bition and sale. 

How is it that in one might almost venture to 
say seven out of every ten saloons in this city, the 
walls are "decorated" with lascivious pictures? In 
some of the leading saloons of Chicago there are paint- 
ings, skillfully executed by artistic fingers fingers and 
brain alas! under the dominion of a most depraved 
heart, and which have no other purpose than to excite 
the passionate and lascivious desires of their beholders. 

Talk about the degradation of ancient Babylon and 
Pompeii, and the licentiousness of the worship of 
Aphrodite in Corinth; Chicago is not one whit the 
better than any of these places, and it is without the 
brave daring of those people who openly and honestly 
declared their base worship, and attempted, with some 
show of reason, to justify it, whilst we lift up our 
hands in horror and condemn it, profess not to know of 
its existence, find fault with and ostracise any man 
who dares to bravely tell us of it and demand that we 
do our duty in seeking to suppress or cure it, and then 
lift up our hands to heaven, and, as Sam Jones says, 
"Go and say our little prayers, and read our little 
Bibles, and sing our little hymns, and thank God we 
are not as other men, for we, ive are the people, the 
choice people of God." 

Can any of our readers explain ivhy these pan- 
derers to lust are allowed to continue in their unholy 
work. Is there no law which prohibits the sale of 



72 OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 

these beastly pictures? The presence of such pictures 
provoke men to the most dirty and disgusting com- 
ments on womankind, and for this, if for no other rea- 
son, should be prohibited. 

For men, human beings of intelligence, and often- 
times of education and what is called " refinement," to 
out-bestialize the beasts and bring all the powers of 
their minds to their detestable work of adding to the 
depravity of others, it is monstrous and devilish; and 
some means should be adopted to make at least the 
open pursuing of such demoralizing work an impos- 
sibility. 

It can never be that men's morals can be regulated 
by law. However much it is to be deplored, men may 
kiell dirty stories one to another if they choose; a man in 
his private room may cover the walls with vile and sug- 
gestive pictures, and no law, perhaps, can be framed to 
interfere with him; but in public places, such exhibi- 
tions should be sternly suppressed by law, and the pro- 
moters of them severely punished. 

Another branch of this lewd picture department is 
found in connection with advertisements. 

Various liquor manufacturers advertise their wares 
by using seductive placards of semi-nude women. Look 
into the windows of many of the saloons and you see 
pictures that would make you blush with shame were 
any pure woman by your side. Our commissioners 
have walked down some of the main streets of Chicago 
and have noted the places where these are to be found 
and the names of the liquors that are thus advertised, 
and the list is by no means small, although no very 
special attention has been given to this department. 

Then, too, in advertising cigars, cigarettes and 



OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 73 

tobaccos it is a notorious fact that the manufacturers 
have sought to outvie each other in the dirty nastiness 
of their suggestive designs. No doubt these fellows 
would meet us with the proverb, " Honi soit qui maly 
pense" but where one hears as our commissioners re- 
port dirty, filthy comments upon the pictures pro- 
vided by these firms, the " evil is thought " not by us 
who seek to expose it, but by those whom we say are 
doing this corrupting work by their lewd exhibitions. 
Some stores are placarded from one end to the other 
with tobacco announcements, many of them designed 
to arouse and excite evil passion. 

The posters of some of the theatrical companies 
are not free from this same charge. So brazen and 
shameless has this business become, that in several 
cities, the law has been invoked to prohibit the posting 
of these indecent advertisements. They have a purpose 
in thus exhibiting members of their companies in slight 
costumes. It is a pandering to the lustful in men, whose 
evil hearts delight in gazing upon the half-exposed per^ 
sons of the performers, attracting audiences for whom 
lewdness, dirty double-entendre and base suggestiveness 
are their chosen food. The Monitor, of Rockford, 111./, 
says: "Municipal authorities allow the managers or 
agents of variety shows, or troops of nastiness to paste 
in conspicuous places along public thoroughfares pic 
tures of semi-nude and grossly voluptuous women, that 
suggests only sensuality to a child's mind, and whicb, 
become a matter of conversation among themselves, 
breeding nothing but baseness and secret sin. Is there 
to be no remedy for this public method of advertising 
shame and insulting the virtue and purity of an inuocettf 
and injured people?" 



74 OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 

In books too, there is much of this pandering to 
the vile and depraved in human nature, and Chicago 
seems to have a " corner " upon the authorship and 
production of some of the vilest books published in 
America. We do not refer to the reprints of the so- 
called classics. Rabelais, Boccaccio, Le Sage and others 
may be debatable ground, and it is not our object to 
enter into a discussion as to the moral or immoral ten- 
dencies of such works as Zola's. 

There may be some argument in favor of such 
novels. One can admire the robustness of Fielding, 
even though he deplores the occasional touches of 
coarseness Fielding indulges in. There may be some 
artistic skill displayed in the younger Dumas' novels, 
which, in a measure, helps to palliate the lustfulness of 
them. 

Tolstoi wrote his Kreutzer Sonata with a purpose^ 
and its revolting pages possess at least the bravery of a 
true soul seeking the solution of an awful problem. But 
there can be no two opinions in the minds of any, as to 
one class of books which are openly exposed for sale, 
without let or hindrance, on the streets of Chicago. 

When a book sets out on its title page that it is the 
realistic history of a street-walker, or the private life of 
a courtesan, and its pages are full of the minutest details 
of a life of vice, written in the most sensational and ex- 
citing manner, it needs no wisdom to discern that such 
a book has but one ^purpose in view, and that purpose is- 
to so arouse the young as to send them headlong inta 
the brothel. 

Few people recognize the close connection between 
these things. There is a fraternity, with bonds as close 
as hell's power can rivet them, existing between the 



OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 75 

brothel on the one hand, and the saloon, the lewd pic- 
ture dealer, the lascivious book-maker and the sensual 
theater manager on the other. The four latter excite 
their patrons so that they patronize the brothel, and the 
brothel repays the assistance rendered by becoming a 
good customer of the saloon and the rest. 

For where is the brothel without liquor? without 
lewd pictures on the walls? without exciting books 
on the tables? and whose inmates do not make of the 
basest theaters what the Christian woman makes of her 
church. 

Indeed the stage of those theaters we have con- 
demned, is the pulpit of the brothel, and its lessons are 
taught and lived there, and too often the stage is but the 
representation of its actualized lessons as found in the 
brothel. 

Here are the advertisements reproduced verbatim 
of two books written in Chicago, published in Chi- 
cago, and sent broadcast from Chicago; books that are 
a disgrace to Chicago, and that the citizens of Chicago 
should suppress, by force if necessary : 

This story is considered by many to be the most interesting 
and entertaining ROMANCE OF GAY LIFE ever written. Thire is 
something about it that Charms and Fascinates, and wins the ad. 
miration of every reader. The heroine is one of those WILD, RECK- 
LESS DARE-DEVILS, that every now and then dashes upon the world 
like a Blazing Meteor and by Brazen Audacity and Wonderful 
Cheek creates a Sensation that makes her at once The Talk of the 
Town, and the Star of the Street. She delights in being called 
Wicked. Her own words, in one striking passage, tells what she is. 
" Mother," she said, " I will not go home ! I will not be good ! I 
will not reform ! I will always be 

"A GAY GIRL OF THE TOWN!" 

The adventures of this Wild Child of the Street, as narrated in 



76 OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 

chapter after chapter of the Romance, are Thrilling in the extreme. 
While under the Spell of a Terrible Enchantment the wayward crea- 
ture seems really Devil-Possessed, and exhibits a hardness of Heart 
that a Demon in Hell could not excel. She Laughs with Horrid 
Glee at a Mother's awful Curse, Defies the Officers of the Law, 
Damns everything Good, and in every possible way endeavors to be 

the Wickedest Girl in . She Drinks, Swears, Fights, Lies, 

Steals, and takes pride in being Abominably Bad. Yet, underneath 
all there is Something Noble in this Wicked Girl. She is not as bad 
as she tries to make herself. The marvelously beautiful little Cour- 
tesan turns with spite and venom upon other and deeper dyed 
wretches, and is the means of Rescuing Innocence from Peril, and 
heaping Coals of Fire upon the Heads of those she hates. Some of 
the situations in this story are Frightful in their Fiendishness, while 
others are Ridiculous in their Ludicrousne=s. She figures promi- 
nently in every chapter, from the time she deserts her poor old 
broken-hearted mother to become an Outcast, to the happier ter- 
mination of her Wickedness. It is a well-told tale one that will be 
carefully preserved long after trashy yarns are dead and forgotten 
and is destined to take Front Rank among the Great Realistic 
Romances of this Fast Age. 

J^~ IT IS THE FASTEST SELLING BOOK EVER PUBLISHED. "^J( 

Most Liberal Terms to Dealers. Agents Wanted Everywhere. 

This is the second: 

A ROMANCE CROWDED WITH WILD EXCITEMENT AND STRANGE 
ADVENTURE. 

The story told by the author is one that relates entirely to the 

Night Side of , nearly every scene, from commencement to 

end, being at or near the Ghostly Midnight Hour. The characters 
are all taken from life, many real names being used. Every phase 
of City Life is depicted so truthfully as to make each chapter of the 
book one of Sensational Excitement. Nothing is omitted that may 
be seen Under the Gaslight. "The Tiger" is visited in his lair. 
The Scarlet Woman is pictured in her Magnificence and her Degra- 
dation. The Assignation Fiend plays a. prominent part. The plot 
is one admirably calculated to bring out the Fiery Element in writ- 
ing that has made the author famous. Every chapter contains some- 
thing Hair-raising and Blood-curdling. It contains every element 



OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 77 

of popularity as a Sensational Romance, abounding in Abductions, 
Street Fights, Stabbings, Shootings, Plottings against Virtue, and 
many more exciting themes, that cannot fail to interest those who 
like to read of City Life as it is. It is beautifully illustrated with 
full page engravings. 

One of the books offered for sale, not only in secret 
dives, but openly on every hand, is a book as vile and 
as filthy as it could possibly be. It professes to give 
the life of a street walker and was written and 
published in this city. One whole chapter is de- 
voted to the speech of a young man who is defend- 
ing the institution of prostitution, and who is justifying 
himself for visiting a house of ill-fame. With the 
most specious arguments arguments that the young 
men and women who read the book will greedily 
swallow he not only attempts to justify his conduct 
in coming regularly to these houses, but in most coarse 
and blasphemous terms condemns those whom he says 
would "howl at him" were his justifications (?) and 
explanations made public. Then and we pray the 
fathers and mothers of Chicago, to heed well what we 
say of this book the old man to whom the young man 
is thus speaking grasps him by the hand and says: 
" Young man, were I your father I would say ' God 
bless you, my son!' " And with these words ringing 
in his ears the young man calls to his female partner in 
crime and they retire to indulge in their foul embraces. 

Think of it! Such a book as this exposed openly 
for sale in Chicago, and openly published here, with 
the loud boast of the publisher on the title page that 
this is one of the sixteenth edition of five thousand. 

Eighty thousand copies of this vile fount of pol- 
lution sold in Chicago to defile the fair sons and 
daughters of this city. Eighty thousand copies of a 



78 OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 

specious argument which vicious minds repeat with 
glee, profess to believe, and certainly make their lives 
conform to, viz: that it is impossible for any young 
man to be chaste; that it is only human and natural for 
him to gratify his lustful appetite. Eighty thousand 
copies of a book that " damns " all those who would 
visit censure upon this young man for thus declaring 
his lustful excuses. Eighty thousand plain and clear 
incitements to three or four times eighty thousand of 
the sons of Chicago to visit the house of prostitution, 
and thus keep up the army of prostitutes that the book 
acknowledges live in this city. 

There is now in the penitentiary at Joliet, a mid- 
dle-aged man, who, for years, carried on the sale of 
obscene literature in Chicago. He was a man of edu- 
cation, but through the cursing influence of drink, 
drifted into the debasing business of distributing these 
abominable books. He was at one time a bookseller 
in this city, doing a good and apparently respectable 
business, but, tempted by the hope of increased gain 
and profit, began, and successfully carried on for a long 
time, the sale of obscene literature. The postoffice 
authorities at length secured his conviction, and he is 
now serving his sentence. 

And yet the literature for which this man was con- 
victed w.as not one whit worse than that which is now 
publicly sold on our principal streets. 

Talk about a vigilance committee to exterminate 
the Mafia, and the necessity of crushing the Clan-na- 
Gael, and the efforts to suppress this and that evil. Can 
there be anything that ought to call forth all the deter- 
mined energies of loyal men and women, pure men 
and women, fathers and mothers, citizens, preachers. 



OBSCENE BOOKS, PICTURES, ETC. 79 

laymen, reformers, philanthropists, and city officials ta 
exterminate more than this breed of polluters of our 
young who make and publish such books as this? 
We talk of the need of cleaning our city streets and 
purifying our city government, which are likely to be 
done, but there is a moral reform work demanding 
attention of far greater importance; yet one and all 
conspire in a policy of silence about such things and 
tacitly acknowledge that " nothing can be done in re- 
gard to them." 

The effect produced upon the young men of Chi- 
cago by this vile literature is infinitely greater for evil 
in the ruining of moral character, than the efforts of all 
the preachers of this city are able to counteract. And 
yet many of them go into their pulpits and roam every- 
where in their thought, delivering essays on current 
literature, and beating the air with unmeaning words, 
when live, active powers of evil like these are before 
them, demanding attention. The work of the preacher 
is to expose and seek to crush all evil, and these evils 
should be a constant theme in the pulpit until the 
remedies are applied and our mental atmosphere is 
cleared as far as possible by the destruction of the 
sources of such pollution and ruin. 

But not only should the pulpit do its duty. The 
obligation, is' upon every citizen to assist in the 
suppression of this vile catalogue of iniquities. 

Let these statements of fact in regard to these books 
bring down such a storm of fierce indignation and 
solemn warning upon the heads of publishers and sel- 
lers that the repetition of such offenses against the 
good of the community will be rendered impossible. 



The Social Evil. 



"One of the most eminent statisticians and experts i 
criminal and other social statistics in the United States 
has gi/en it as his opinion that licentiousness is the most 
powerful cause of crime in this country." 

Rev. S. W. Dike. 

' ' Whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh 
urderstanding; he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. 

A wound and a dishonor shall he get, and his reproack 
shall not be wiped away. 

Proverbs of Solomon. 

" Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her 
hath committed adultery already with her in his heart." 

Jesus of Nazareth. 

"The chariot wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and 
there through distant streets, are bearing her to Halls 
roofed-in, and lighted to due pitch for her; and only Vice 
and Misery, to prowl or to moan like night-birds, are 
abroad. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers ia 
his rank dens of shame." 

Carlyle. 

THE gigantic evil of prostitution in Chicago has 
assumed the aggressive attitude it takes in all 
large cities where constant vigilance is not exer- 
cised to check it. To say that it is not a grave and 
fearful problem, is to acknowledge one's-self ignorant 
of the world's past history. Men have always at- 
tempted to justify prostitution, but despite these 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 8 1 

attempts, the world at large has never yet allowed itself 
to gaze upon a fallen woman without a feeling of ab- 
horrence and pity. 

In seeking this justification the woman has been 
ignored ; her side of the question has never been con- 
sidered. Solon, the great Greek, even as early as 594 
B. c., established public brothels as state institutions, in 
Athens, for the benefit of men, and this same wise man 
decreed that " a woman who submitted to the embraces 
of a lover must atone for the enormity, by loss of free- 
dom or life." 

In all ages man, by his superior brute power, has 
compelled the weaker woman to submit to his lustful 
embraces. Sometimes it has been under the guise of 
religious rite, but generally confessed as an outlet for 
his uncontrolled passionate impulses. In Babylon, Ar- 
menia, Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Carthage, as 
well as in Greece and Rome, and even in Jerusalem, 
the sexual subjugation of women in the horrors of 
prostitution was common. 

Hence has come down to us in this day of modern 
civilization the " dual standard of chastity," "what is 
right for man is wrong for woman! " 

There are thousands of men in Chicago, who, by 
their lives more than merely profess to believe this hor- 
rible doctrine. Physiology emphatically denies such a 
foul aspersion on mankind. It is as easy for a man to 
be chaste as a woman. He is no more subject to un- 
controllable sexual impulse than is she. Therefore 
the social law that renders a "fallen woman" an outcast 
and yet tolerates the "fallen man" is an outrage and a 
slander upon humanity. And this outrage is glaringly 
apparent in Chicago on every hand. North, West and 



82 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

South Sides are infested with dens of prostitutes, and, 
of course, with prostitute's companions, men who are 
far worse than the women they visit. We extend 
our intensest sympathy to the majority of these women. 
Their lives are evil, we admit, but the extenuating cir- 
cumstances are often greater than the world has any 
idea; their business is loathsome and hideous even to 
themselves; their end dreadful and tormenting. So 
that we pity the poor female, and would extend the 
helping hand to her, but we confess to no such feelings 
for the majority of " fallen men." And let it be dis- 
tinctly understood here, that there are from seven to 
twelve " fallen men" to every "fallen woman." We 
must not count the one sex only, in our estimates of 
this foul evil, the other is far greater in numbers, and 
we believe, far greater in criminality. 

Too often the woman's chief fault was her great 
love and perfect trustfulness in the man who betrayed 
her. Seduced by his specious promises, she gave all 
she had, her life, her honor to his keeping, and he 
foully violated the trust, and then cast her off to enter 
the life of shame which ends only in dishonor, disease 
and death. 

In this great and free commonwealth of Illinois 
there is no law for the punishment of seduction by 
either man or woman. Of the need of such law the 
report of the Protective Agency thus speaks: 

' The most painful cases in the Protective work are those of 
young girls who have been dishonored, outraged and seduced. 

" Under the influence of some deadening drug, many a terrible 
assault is accomplished; few, comparatively, are reported unless 
pregnancy results. For the self-dependent girl to announce her 
shame (?) is to weight her hands and feet with lead, to take hope out 
of her heart, and to close the doors of homes to her all over the land. 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 83 

"Somewhere these murderers walk unmolested; would that 
they bore the mark of Cain ! 

" In yonder hospital a young girl awaits the swift-coming birth- 
pangs in pitiful terror. The old story, seduction under promise of 
marriage and an attempt, by his assistance, to destroy the fruit of 
sin forsaken ! 

" In answer to my question, ' Why not go home ? ' she replied, 
with streaming tears, 'Oh, I dare not, 1 have no mother, she might 
forgive me, my step-mother never would.' 

"And where, meanwhile, is the father of the unwelcome child 
resting beneath this breaking heart? In one of the most influential 
firms in this city, received as kindly as of yore, careless, heartless, 
utterly irresponsive to appeals made to him by ladies of our society, 
who visited him at different times to urge him to redeem his promise 
and marry this poor trusting girl and legitimize their child. 

" ' He needn't live with me if he don't want to, but I can re- 
turn to my father's house if I am only married,' she said, pit- 
eously. 

"And what would we say to these betrayed girls? We would 
say: If you have fallen rise! If you have been plunged down 
an abyss climb up ! Assert your womanhood, and remember there 
is in the world no illegitimate child. Motherhood may be always 
holy, if we will it so to 6e, and while God lives, none can be 
fatherless ! Illegitimate parentage there may be, but protect your 
child, as you value your own immortal soul, from the sting and 
ostracism of an unjust public sentiment. 

"And you and I, dear reader and friend, will help usher in a 
better day by demanding the same code of morals for men and 
women. " 

Here is a case which was taken up by the Protec- 
tive Agency, and given in their last annual report: 

"Another case of unusual importance was an assault case by a 
man named Murray, upon a young girl only just fourteen years old. 
The girl was adopted into a family where she had come to be an un- 
welcome inmate, and about the time this man became acquainted 
with her she was very unhappy at home. The man was married, 
and had three lovely children, but for years had lived a most im- 
moral life. He was plausible in his address, and, it seems, winning 



84 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

in his manners, and soon gained the confidence of the child. On a 
promise of taking her to visit places of interest in the city he enticed 
her to a hotel where he registered her as his sister. He there as- 
saulted her. Some six weeks after, the girl's mother by questioning, 
found out the facts and arrested him. The case was brought to our 
notice after the beginning of suit in the justice court. Every annoy- 
ing and odious practice was resorted to for the purpose of discour- 
aging us from the start. After four or five continuances, sometimes 
running till late in the evening, we finally had the man held to the 
criminal court. After some consideration we decided that in view 
of the fact that the man had a lovely wife and some very bright 
children and that our complaining witness was a very young girl 
Almost alone in t'.e world we would not push the case in the crim- 
inal court if the man's employers would discharge him from a posi- 
"ion he had held twenty-one years. This they declined to do and he 
iared us to prosecute him, alleging that the case was a conspiracy 
against him.. The case was prosecuted and the man found that a 
^ury of twelve good men did not consider that the evidence gave any 
'ndication of a conspiracy. He was convicted and given twenty 
vears in the penitentiary. The death of the presiding judge before 
sentence was passed gave him a new trial, and as we had placed the 
f\T\ in an excellent school we preferred to have him p}ead 'guilty' 
ind take three years in the penitentiary rather than subject so young 
a girl to the odium of another trial. The girl gives us a good 
promise of an excellent future. She has improved so amazingly 
while she has been under our charge that we have every reason to 
believe she -will become a useful and worthy woman." 

It is a fact so well known to many as to excite no 
horror and alas! in many, no indignation, "that it is not 
an infrequent thing for a man to hire a young and pretty 
girl, ostensibly for clerical work, but 'with the express 
purpose of debauching her" We could give many 
such incidents. Here is one which shows the danger 
to which such girls are exposed: 

A young lady from a neighboring town, clear- 
headed, bright, and thank God clean and virtuous, 
thought that in Chicago she could improve her financial 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 85 

condition. She was "a good clerk, and typewriter and 
personally responded to sixteen advertisements she 
found in Chicago papers, inserted by Chicago business 
men, asking for a female typewriter. Out of the six- 
teen, FIFTEEN explicitly told her she might do their 
work at a salary of from $10 to $12 a week if she 
would submit to their embraces. Fifteen times had she 
to spurn these horrible proposals. The sixteenth was 
the honorable proposal of an honorable man which she 
accepted, at a salary of $5 a week. And she is still 
there, and is prepared to give names and full particulars 
under oath of the above statement, if any person is 
found with temerity enough to deny it. 

There are many girls, however, who have not re- 
ceived the home-training this girl received, and who, 
therefore, would easily have fallen into the miry pit of 
sensuality. Our commissioners know of several who 
have yielded to such offers. 

At the opening of the new building of the 
Woman's Refuge Mr. Ballard made the pertinent re 
mark that if ever a plan should be needed for thedeten 
tion of the evil men who have made this Home neces- 
sary, he was prepared to furnish plans for a building in 
which "every room should be cold as their hearts and 
dark as their deeds." And to this sentiment, all those 
who are familiar with many cases of " woman's fall," 
will heartily concur. 

There are so many forms in which this most 
gigantic of evils the social evil manifests itself that 
it is impossible in these few pages to do more 
than cursorily touch upon them. One writer has elo- 
quently and truthfully said : 

" Impurity is about us like a cloud. It presses in- 



86 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

ward at all points like an atmosphere. Its grosses* 
forms are its fewest forms, and its creeping mist tar 
nishes and defaces even more than it destroys." 

Col. J. L. Greene's words, uttered at a congress in 
Washington, apply perfectly to Chicago: " The open 
doors of hell stand wide to lure the footsteps of oui 
sons into the ways of death, and to make traffic in 
woman's ruin ; and we jostle on the streets their emis- 
saries, who, with hellish craft and unpitying hearts lure 
the untaught, the unwary, the giddy, foolish girls to re- 
cruit those swiftly-thinned ranks that fill our hospital? 
and our potter's fields with loathsome disease and pre- 
mature death, and who put into the hands of our youths 
and our children a literature of unspeakable depravity' 
The secret lust of the outwardly respectable has it? 
unsuspected homes of sin in all our quarters; the break- 
ers of marriage vows, men and women, masquerade in 
our society; the miserable poor herd in a promiscuity 
that makes innocence impossible and purity almost so; 
the low wages that make the bargains on our shop 
counters press upon the unnumbered army of work- 
women the constant temptation to sell soul and body to 
supply needed comfort; and the air of the round world 
throbs wearily day and night with the foul speech and 
deadly mirth of foul minds and hearts. These things 
we all might see and know for ourselves, did we not 
try to shut our eyes to them, and draw our skirts about 
us, and feel that our only responsibility in regard to 
them is to avoid them." 

Our commissioners, however, have not avoided 
them, and we would that with loud trumpet tones then 
note of warning might be heard not only in Chicago, 
but also through the length and breadth of the land. 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 87 

There are several sections in Chicago almost en- 
tirely devoted for whole blocks, to houses of prostitu- 
tion. One of these localities is known as The Black 
Hole, and it does not belie its name. 

Lemuel Eli Quiggs in his Tin-Types of Xew York 
gives a description of the Bowery in that city, that per- 
fectly applies to the Black Hole and many other less 
noted regions of Chicago. "In truth, it is a suggestive 
place, is the Black Hole. Day and night are all the 
same to it. It never gets up and it never goes to bed. 
It never takes a holiday. It never keeps Lent. It in- 
dulges in no sentiments. It acknowledges no authority 
that bids it remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 
But from year's end to year's end it bubbles, and boils, 
and seethes, and frets, while the daylight lasts, and in 
the glare of the brighter night it plunges headlong into 
carousal ! " 

On many streets in Chicago, girls constantly lie in 
wait and solicit men as they pass. It is a common 
thing for these poor creatures to openly ply their traffic. 
And there are houses ostensibly hotels close at hand 
where they take their, alas! too often, willing victims. 
Sometimes the invitation is to take a glass of beer, and 
the offer to allow "privileges" if the man will pay. 
There are always gaudily decorated saloons and res- 
taurants, in near proximity to the " walks " of these 
girls, in which there are private boxes convenient for 
such a purpose, where, as the girls say, " we shall be 
perfectly safe, for there's only the waiter to see, and he 
only comes when we ring the bell." 

And these restaurants are places where some of 
the leading men of the city go and eat. Fine, elegant 
rooms well fitted up food prepared delicately; yet 



88 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

they are not above being made a means of pandering 
to the lowest vices of mankind. They may say they 
know nothing of what goes on in these private com- 
partments. "If men and women wish to eat, well and 
good, and they are not supposed to know nor to care 
what transpires there." Granted that this is so, then 
it is only another instance of the impudence of vice that 
it dare stalk so openly into "respectable places." 

And if the saloon-keepers shall set up the same 
plea, we would ask them why they keep a door, with a 
dim light above it, in a back alley, easy of access, ready 
tor one of these girls to enter with her companion, be 
he somewhat ashamed and timid? 

And why is it that these girls and God knows 
we pity them, oftentime far more than the men who 
use them are allowed to stand at the foot of the hotel 
stairs, soliciting men as they pass by? 

Living as they do, upon a stimulating diet, young 
men are weakened in power to resist such temptations 
when thrown in their 'way. And it is not for one- 
moment to be thought that all these girls bear a rude, 
repulsive look. That they may ultimately become 
these we know sadly too well, but in the earlier days 
of their evil career they look, Christian mother! just as 
sweet, and pretty, and demure, as your own charming 
and God be thanked! spotless daughter. This 
has been, and ever is, one of the constant sources of 
surprise to those who first engage in this work. It is 
not always the vicious-looking that are vicious. Fresh- 
looking, bright, vivacious country lasses, who have not 
yet begun to seriously feel the terrible effects of their 
awful life, are the ones who are sought for in these 
" city " hptel-brothels, for they are more liable to 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 89 

^ernpt, more successful in bringing in custom, than the 
more practiced, but at the same time, more coarse- 
looking seductress. 

And, father! mother! your boy is exposed to these 
temptations. They meet him on every hand, unless he 
is unusually guarded, or unusually dull. 

These female seducers are not all professional 
prostitutes by any means. There is quite an army 
of shop-girls who walk our streets in detachments of 
one or two night after night. Our commissioners re- 
port them on every hand. Sometimes the stories of 
^heir hard lives have been learned by questioning. 
Working for $5 a week how could they live health- 
fully and clothe themselves decently? After paying two 
dollars a week for room and fifteen cents a meal for 
three meals a day there is not much left for clothing 
and the other necessaries of life. Poor girls, our hearts 
bleed for them. They are to be pitied and sympathized 
with. Their woes ought to commend them to the 
loving care of Christian fathers and mothers, brothers 
and sisters. But instead, we crowd to the bargain 
counters like flocks of silly sheep, eagerly anxious to 
purchase the things we do not need, and yet, which 
sold at the low price they are, still further reduce the 
Avages of these already almost starving work-girls. God 
forgive us all for our selfishness. 

Many a girl working in a store in Chicago, stands 
at a counter all day, and then, when the shades of night 
fall over the business centers, walks the streets, solicit- 
ing the passers-by. There are any number of hotels 
where for a small sum a room may be obtained, and 
these poverty-stricken ones, almost driven to despera- 
tion by their wretched condition, are constrained to 



$O THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

use this apparently easy method for adding to their in- 
comes. 

How awful 'tis that bread's so dear, 
When flesh and blood's so cheap. 

And more awful when we contemplate that to 
*nany the only way open whereby they may purchasa 
bread and butter is by the sale of their bodies and souls. 

We have spoken of girls receiving for wages $5 
a week, but there are many who are not paid even thi* 
miserable pittance. One large store in this city pay 
competent girls from $2.50 to $3.50 per week, and theses 
are fair wages for ordinary counte-r girls. In the fac- 
tories too, such fearfully small wages are paid, that the 
words of Annie Besant become a stern indictment of 
the wrong economic principles upon which our busi- 
nesess are conducted. She says: "Our great em- 
ployers build homes for fallen women, while they are 
manufacturing them in their factories." 

It is all very well for people who know nothing 
of the lives of these poor creatures to say, " they should 
either live honest or starve, maybe drown themselves.'' 
Such a criticism upon them implies that they are 
possessed of the fine fibre of soul without which one 
will not cannot, starve or drown one's self. There 
are few like Lucretius or Virginius. Death is not an 
easy thing to face, whether it be the slow process of 
starvation or the more rapid transit by means of knife, 
charcoal, or the river, and when it becomes a question 
of " lose your virtue or die," the number of those who 
will choose the lacter are very few. 

The wise man knew the human heart pretty well 
when he wrote, " Skin for skin, all that a man hath 
will he give for his life." even though that life is all 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. QI 

vanity and vexation of spirit. For when a girl accepts 
a life on such conditions she knows it is but to accept 
that dire degradation that is worse than vexation of 
spirit it is a life of wretchedness, misery and dishonor. 
And they accept the life because as a rule they are 
neither logical or far-sighted. As Dr. Andrew F. 
Currier says, " That it should furnish the only available 
means of preventing starvation in those who are will- 
ing to work, is too frequently a fact to be cast aside as 
mere sentiment. How can human beings live on the 
ridiculous wages which some forms of industry yield ? 
This is not a pleasant table of alternatives which many 
a poor girl with scanty wages has to face to beg, 
steal, starve, commit suicide, or turn prostitute." 

Oh for men with the power of Moses, the strength 
of Samson, the vigor of Gideon, the daring of Elijah 
and the courage of Isaiah to beard the giants of sloth 
and selfish indifference in their dens, and with eloquent 
whip of persuading power lead them to make some 
radical reform in their treatment of these girls. 

Not only is the woe of their lives cast upon us, but 
their souls will assuredly be required at our hands un- 
less we seek more earnestly to do our bounden duty to 
them. They surely ought to be able to exchange their 
labor for the necessaries of life; and no system can bear 
the searching light of justice that does not award them 
this meed of their labor. 

Some sections are devoted almost entirely to pro- 
fessional prostitutes. 

On the West Side there are places where it is im- 
possible for a man to walk at night without being 
openly solicited, and in passing through in the day time 
there are ten chances to one that if he gazes in the direo 



92 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

tion of the house windows, gaily-dressed and gaudily- 
painted "sirens" will seek to lure him to destruction. 
Some of the girls are white and some are black, but, all 
alike alas! have the same'black purpose of heart. 

In one section on the South Side there are several 
regions devoted entirely to houses of prostitution. In 
one portion there are from forty to forty-five houses. 
" And," in the words of the special commissioner who 
reports this section, " they are not wretched houses, 
speaking of destitution and want. Oh, no! the visitors 
generally come in carriages, and I have counted four- 
teen carriages at one time in this one block, waiting 
for the ' lords and masters of creation ' who had gone 
into the ' snare of the fowler' within. 

" One night, passing by here, I saw four well- 
dressed, well-appearing gentlemen (?) come out from 
a house, followed by the four girls with whom they 
had been having a ' good time,' and the openness of the 
thing seemed to be nothing extraordinary to them. 

" The major portion of these houses are ' gilded 
palaces.' They are as elegantly decorated and elabor- 
ately furnished within as the mansions of Michigan and 
Prairie avenues. Fine pictures, bric-a-brac, musical 
instruments, elegant curtains, Persian rugs and the 
like, are what one here finds." 

Such houses are of the " higher " class. They are 
places where young men, and business men too, are 
frequent visitors. Our commissioners have followed 
several of these men to their homes on the avenues and 
boulevards, where their families were doubtless alto- 
gether ignorant of their sinfulness. 

Dr. T. De Witt Talmage after his tour of explora-, 
tion into the haunts of vice in Brooklyn and New 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 9J, 

York wrote "all the sacred rhetoric about the costly 
magnificence of the haunts of iniquity is apocryphal." 
This was doubtless true of the places he saw, but it is 
not true of many places in Chicago. There are some 
houses here where elegance of decoration, etc., are to be 
met with that would charm the most exacting "conos- 
cente " and from which even disciples of Oscar Wilde 
might learn. 

As to the patrons of these places, one of the lady 
commissioners, whose life for many years has been de- 
voted to the rescue of the inmates from their fearful 
life of shame and ruin, thus speaks of one experience: 

" In calling at one house, the housekeeper in- 
formed me that the girls were nearly all out. 'But,' said 

she, 'there's one girl in, but is with her. He's 

been here drunk for over a week. 

( The blank can be filled in by the reader to apply 
to a millionaire of Chicago, a man as well known as any 
one of the recent candidates for mayor, and a leading 
society man.) 

" Not wishing to see this one girl, under the cir- 
cumstances, I left, saying I would call again later on. 

"A few hours later I returned, and as I approached 
the door one of the girls also came up, to whom I said, 
' Can I see you and have a talk with you for a little 
while?' 

"'Certainly,' she replied, 'Come in!' 

" We entered the house, and, instead of taking me 
to the parlor, where I was accustomed to go and have 
my talks with them, she took me up two flights of 
stairs. I thought she was going to her own room so 
that we might talk alone and undisturbed, but, instead 
of that she gently rapped at a door. As it was opened, 



94 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

I was somewhat alarmed to find it in semi-darkness. I 
had never been in a ' tight place ' in any of my previous 
visitations to these houses, and thought ' surely they 
don't mean to entrap me,' and as I stood, the girl urged 
me to enter. I refused; when another girl, in an 
almost nude condition, came to the threshold and like- 
wise desired me to ' Come in! ' 

" As she did so, I heard the voice of a man pro- 
ceeding from the direction of the bed, talking in the 
thick, heavy, maudlin tones of drunkenness. This 
again alarmed me, and I drew back in horror and dis- 
gust, when the inmate of the room sought to calm my 

fear by saying, 'Oh that's only and he's as 

drunk as a fool.' 

" I refused to go into the room, and my guide, 
therefore, took me downstairs to the parlor, where, by 
this time, several of the girls were assembled. 

" While I was talking to them the girl we had left 
upstairs came in. She was in an almost nude state, but 
was, without exception, one of the most beautiful crea- 
tures my eyes had ever rested upon. Form, figure, 
complexion, hair, eyes, voice and manner were alike 
charming, and as she seemed anxious to talk with me, 
the interest she aroused in my heart was met with a 
corresponding confidence in her. manner towards me. 
When she learned my name and mission, she asked if I 

knew Miss B (the president of the Mission) and I 

then learned that her mother was a member of the same 

church as Miss B , and that this poor girl, living in 

such abasement, had at one time been a member of the 
Sunday school of that church. Think of it! Here was 
a child whose friends lived but a few miles from where 
she was, and yet they were mourning her as one 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 95 

* worse than dead.' And the vice that holds her in 
its chains is allowed to spread and grow almost un- 
checked. Few are the efforts being made by any one 
to suppress this monster evil of licentiousness, and it 
swallows up some of the fairest and most beautiful of 
our maidens. 

" But I must return to my account of this man and 
his victims. A few days later a girl whom I had res- 
cued a year and a half previously from her sinful life, 
came to my rooms in order to confer with me about 
taking a situation that had recently been offered to her. 
I thought I had seen her on the streets a few days pre- 
viously with a woman of whose purity and honesty of 
character I had every reason to be suspicious, and, 
therefore, out of kindness to the girl, asked her if that 
was the woman who had been the means of getting her 

the situation. She replied, ' Yes! Mrs. is a great 

friend of Mr. (mentioning the name of the man I 

had found drunk in the house of prostitution) and he 
has offered me this place. He is very kind to young 
girls, and when they are poor and have no outfit, he 
gives it to them.' 

" This only confirmed my fears as to the danger 
the poor child was in, and I begged her to have nothing 
to do with either the man or woman. She refused to 
accept my counsel, until, as a last resort, I told her what 
I knew of this man's character, and where I had found 
him a few days before. ' How can such a man be a 
true friend to you ? ' 

" She acknowledged that it did not seem as if he 
could, and gladly gave up the tempting offer in 
which such danger lurked, in order to take a humbler 
but far more safe position. 



96 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

" Now, perhaps, some will say, how do I know 

the girls didn't lie about it's being Mr. who was in 

that room? 

" Let me explain. Subsequently I was in that 
room myself, and the girl whose beauty had so charmed 
me, showed me his photograph, nailed to the inner door 
of her wardrobe, a large, almost life-size head, and also 
showed me a number of handsome presents he had 
given her. And I thought to myself when I saw that, 
as I have seen other photographs of Chicago men in 
such vile places, ' what would their families, their 
churches, and society in general, say, if they knew what 
I know?' 

"Would to God that something could be done to 
keep from these houses men of apparent respectability, 
and of family, for they at least can find no excuse for 
visiting these vile dens." 

We agree with our commissioner. Whatever 
apparent reason any unmarried men may have, cannot 
be pleaded as an excuse for the lustfulness of married 
men, and in our remedies we shall suggest what ought 
to be done with such cases. 

Do not let our meaning be misunderstood. We do 
not intend to convey the idea that unmarried men have 
any legitimate excuse for visiting harlots. We say 
most emphatically there is no excuse for either married 
or unmarried men. We asked for information on this 
matter from a gentlemen who used to be a cab driver 
in Chicago, but who is now a prominent official in one 
of the leading religious organizations of this city and 
county, and he reports as follows: 

" A prominent hotel-keeper of this city once en- 
gaged me to drive to a certain house on the North Side. 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. Q7 

Soon after we got there, he came out accompanied by 
a beautiful young lady. Then he told me to drive 
around Park, and said in a whisper I needn't hurry, 
I might take my time. After I had driven around the 
park several times he told me to take them to - . 
(mentioning a house I well knew as a high-toned as- 
signation house). This interested me in what he 
wished to do. As we drove along he began to force 
matters with the young lady, and she screamed so loud 
that a policeman ran into the road to stop me. But I 
whipped up my horse and managed to evade him. 
When we got to the house, he went inside, alone, and 
soon returned with the madame whom he introduced as 

his friend, Mrs. . The two then tried to persuade 

the girl to go inside, but for some reason or other she 
wisely refused. Mr. Hotel-keeper then told me to 
drive her home, and went off himself, when he doubt- 
less told his wife he had been detained with very ' ur- 
gent business.' 

"Another time I was standing with my cab when 
two well-dressed young men came to me and said they 
were up from a neighboring city, and were here to 
' paint the town red.' They wanted me to drive them 
where they could get < something young.' I took them 
to one of the leading sporting houses in the city, and 
soon afterwards they came out accompanied by two 
beautiful young girls who could not have been more 
than seventeen or eighteen years of age. I first of all 
took them to the 'at that time a noted place in Chi- 
cago where most respectable ladies and gentlemen 
would go and sip their wine, little imagining that they 
were in one of the worst resorts of the city. 

"After they had caroused there awhile, they asked 



g8 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

me to drive them out to a fancy -house on the outskirts 
of the city, and after spending nearly the whole of the 
night there in lustful pleasure, keeping me waiting all 
the time, the young men told me to take them back to 
their hotel, and the girls to the place from which I had 
fetched them. I did so. 

" When I got to the girls' home, they were both 
sound asleep, and, as the early morning sun shone on 
their fair young faces, tears came into my eyes, and 
rolled down my cheeks, hardened man as I was, at the 
thought that young men demand the sacrifice of the 
lives, the bodies and the souls of such girls as these, in 
order that their lustful and evil passions may be 
gratified." 

This report leads us to the next inquiry, which we 
must treat as briefly as possible, viz: From whence 
comes the great army of prostitutes ? As the old ones 
die, where are the new ones found? 

Would to God that men would ask themselves this 
question, and then carefully seek an answer. 

Many are decoyed into such houses; more go there 
after being betrayed. They have lost caste, they are 
disgraced, and they think there is no other door open 
to them. Luther's words are indeed true, even to-day, 
three centuries after they were uttered, " This is a hard 
world for girls" 

Hundreds of girls can be found to-day in this city 
indeed they are passing through the hands of our com- 
missioners daily in private houses, Mission rooms, 
hospitals, and poor-house, who have been betrayed 
under promise of marriage, and then deserted by the 
execrable wretches who thus traded upon the too great 
love of a true-hearted woman. 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 99 

Betrayed, soon to become mothers, cast out by 
friends, looked upon as sources of contamination in 
the Church of Christ, where they should be cared for 
and protected, they feel, as many of them have ex- 
pressed it in words, " My womanhood was gone, and I 
could do no other than go to the bad." And to the 
bad they accordingly went, victims of a cruel and un- 
just social law which condemns the woman, but ex- 
cases the man. 

Whoever studies this problem will be surprised to 
find how many girls there are who are forced into this 
life because of their too trustful disposition. Christian 
and infidel writers alike agree, for investigation com- 
pels the making of such a statement. From a recent 
number of a Chicago free-thinking journal, we take the 
following extract which eloquently expresses the above 
fact: 

" My pen pauses. It will not move on. I cannot 
write of your ruin. I can only remember how you 
looked, an innocent girl, with your tender, sweet face, 
your red lips and golden hair. You were seventeen 
then, as spotless as the lily that lifts itself on its grace- 
ful stem to the warm kisses of the glowing sun. I 
know how you fell. Ife paid the fine. He saved you 
from entering that fearful prison den. I can under- 
stand your gratitude. I know that you were a woman. 
It was so sweet to be loved. You believed in him. I 
understand how it came to you gradually, that he was 
a monster, an inhuman, heartless wretch, more terrible 
than a wild beast in the forest. The latter would crush 
your white bones, would devour you at once. This 
other, this horrid human vulture that fattens on the 
degradation of his victims, slowly drained the last bit of 



IOO THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

innocence and purity from your woman's soul. He 
tired of you. You went down down! Where else 
could you go? Up and down, when considered in rela- 
tion to men and women are not merely relative terms. 

" And when they brought you into that police 
court again and again, he, this man, always stepped 
forward and paid the fine. And again and again you 
were forced into the street to ply your wretched voca- 
tion; and into his coarse, brutal hand your pretty white 
fingers passed the shining gold. You were young and 
beautiful and possessed a market value, and this man, 
as was so coarsely said, 'was in luck.' And the great 
State, the mighty corporation, was in luck, too! You 
and thirty thousand more constituted its revenue. It 
lived off you paid its officers, ran its Justice shop!" 

There are doubtless some who live this life because 
of their own wicked inclinations, but, we assure our 
readers that this number is far less than they could 
possibly imagine. 

Some are driven to it as we have before shown; 
and Dr. Currier thus speaks of others: " I believe that 
women are less influenced by uncontrollable sexual de- 
sire than men. It is not usually this which is a leading 
motive to a life of prostitution. Many women are fore- 
doomed to such a career. Their early training has 
been bad or wholly neglected; their home surroundings 
have been vicious. In the homes of drunkards, thieves 
and prostitutes, it is scarcely possible to educate children 
in the ways of virtue. Thousands of women go from 
such homes to practice prostitution, or perhaps practice 
it within their homes, with no consciousness of its im- 
morality. Without a conception of morality how can 
there be a knowledge of its violation?" 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. IOI 

Our cabman commissioner strikes the key-note to 
many a woman's ruin in the following report: 

" One evening I was standing with my cab, when 
two well-dressed ladies stepped up to me and asked me 

to drive them to Avenue. They would not tell 

me the number, and I saw at once they had been 
drinking very heavily. We had not gone far before 
they became hilarious and excited, and broke all the 
windows of the cab. Then they began to quarrel about 
a diamond pin, and made so much noise that an officer 
came to the center of the road, stopped my horses, and, 
getting into the cab, ordered me to drive to the police- 
station, which I did. 

When we arrived, the ladies were relieved of their 
diamonds, gold watches, jewelry and money, and were 
locked up in a cell where there was nothing on which 
to sit or lie except a bench. 

" I wanted my pay, but was told by the officer in 
charge to be at the station the next morning, when it 
would be given to me. 

" I appeared at the stated time, but was then in- 
formed that the ladies were released on bail and that I 
must get an order from them ere 1 could be paid. I 
got their address, went to the house and was admitted 
after considerable talk. To my painful surprise I 
learned that both ladies were married : one had a sweet, 
little baby girl, not more than six months old who had 
been alone all night while her mother was on her 
drunken spree. These ladies lived in a very aristo- 
cratic part of the city, and their neighbors would never 
suspect that they ever did such a thing as get drunk." 

In this case they were mercifully kept from un- 
chastity, but, in too many cases with which we are 



IO2 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

familiar, such escapades have ended in the assignation 
house, the divorce courts, the life of shame, and finally,, 
the dishonored grave. 

Here is a case which was heard in one of the courts 
quite recently: 

A white girl was found in a negro house of pros- 
titution. She was the daughter of wealthy and 
respectable parents. Led astray and deserted she 
became desperate and reckless, and was sent to one of 
the rescue homes of this city, from which she escaped, 
to finally be arrested in this horrible den, where she 
was consorting with the vilest kind of negroes. Taken 
to the place in a state of semi-intoxication, by some 
man whom she had picked up on the streets, she was 
kept in that condition all the time she was there, and we 
can well imagine her horror at awaking to find herself 
in jail. Full of remorse, her bitterness was increased 
tenfold, when, on going into court, she found her 
mother, who had been telegraphed for. Sobbing and 
crying she begged the maternal forgiveness, which 
with true love was freely and fully given. 

When our commissioner saw the girl, she was 
alone in her misery, in the cell of the criminal, held by 
the law as a witness against the keepers of the dive 
into whose hellish place she had been entrapped by evil 
machinations. There she lay on her narrow cot, sobbing 
piteously in her pain of body, and far worse anguish of 
soul, praying for death to relieve her of a life that had 
become too painful to be borne. 

Thus it is that women enter these houses. Many 
would flee from them, if they knew where to go to gain 
an honest living, where they would not constantly be 
taunted by reminders of their former sinful lives. There 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. IO3 

are to-day in our hospitals many poor girls, sent there 
diseased and wretched, who would never return to their 
fearful occupation did they but know of some other 
place where they might go. But, without character, 
without friends, without money, without anything, in 
fact, except the desire to flee to a purer life, their path- 
way seems hedged in on every hand, so that a return to 
their old courses seems to be the only alternative for 
them. 

Take the following words of Lyman Abbott's, 
change the word " man " into " woman " and in the 
first three ways of treating a fallen woman you have 
key-notes to much of the sin and misery existing in 
Chicago houses of prostitution. 

" There are four ways of treating sinful man; four 
ways in which men actually do treat sinful men; the 
way of the wolf, the way of the bison, the way of the 
bee, and the way of Christ. 

"When a wolf in the pack falls, all the other 
wolves pounce on him and tear him to pieces. And that is 
the way some treat a man that has gone wrong. They 
pull him down, tear him from shoulder to shoulder* 
rend him, roll his iniquity like a sweet morsel under 
their tongues, rejoice in his iniquity; and these are the 
very men who are afraid that forgiveness will tend to 
take away the conditions of justice, and let men go free. 

" When a bison falls in his track, the bisons do not 
turn upon him and rend him; they leave him alone 
and sweep on in their course. And that is the second 
way men treat a man gone wrong. Put him in 
turn the key on him, bury him in oblivion, forget 
and the great tide of life sweeps on. It is the indiffer- 
ence and unconcern of absolute selfishness. 



IO4 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

" Then there is the way of the bee. When the 
drones get too numerous, and cannot be endured any 
longer, the bees turn upon them and sting them to 
death, and then shove them out of the hive. So long 
as sin is not very troublesome, leave it alone : when it 
takes such shape as to threaten our hive we will get 
rid of it, and then we will go on making our honey. 

" The way of the wolf, the way of the bison, the 
way of the bee and the way of Christ. 

" We have two stories in the Bible, of women 
taken in adultery. One m the Old Testament, through 
whom a javelin was thrust, and she died instantly; and 
again of the sinner in the New Testament to whom 
Christ spake the gracious words of hope and forgive- 
ness. Which of these stories has had the greater effect 
in the purification of humanity? I doubt not, do you?" 

" How many prostitutes are there in Chicago? " 

This is a most difficult question to answer. Some 
years ago, the pastor of one of the leading churches of 
the city made the assertion that there were3o,ooo pros- 
titutes in Chicago. This estimate was undoubtedly an 
exaggerated one; yet, had it included all those who are 
habitually unchaste in this city, it would have been 
nearer the mark than most people would imagine. 

All estimates, however, must be more speculative 
than mathematical. We can tell how many open 
houses there are in certain regions. For instance, in 
one section there are from 40 to 45, in another about 35 
to 40, and in yet another from 10 to a dozen, and 
so on all over the city. The number of the inmates 
varies. Some have two or three, others have as many 
as 25, and in a few cases even more. 

We are perfectly safe in affirming that there are 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. IO5 

more houses of prostitution and assignation in Chicago 
than there are churches. Solomon spoke of the former 
as "the way of hell," his father, David, designated 
the latter as " gates of heaven." Painful it is, that 
there are more open ways to hell than there are open 
gates to heaven. 

The churches are open but a small portion of the 
week, the houses of vice never close; they are open 
from one year's end to another. Eternally vigilant in 
their soul and body-destroying work, they emphasize 
the Nazarene's statement that " the children of this 
world are in their generation wiser than the children of 
light." They never sleep; and thus the seductive 
temptations are ever kept before the sons of men. 

And, alas, too many of the young and innocent are 
entrapped by these dragons of death, as a succeeding 
portion of this chapter will too sadly show. 

Referring to those who are " habitually unchaste," 
the prostitutes themselves are very bitter against those 
who, for pleasure only, are walking in paths of sin. 
One of our commissioners writes the following: 

" A startling statement is being made openly by 
the inmates of houses of prostitution and we have 
some facts that confirm it, horrible though it be and 
that is, that their " business " is being taken from them 
by married women; women with good homes, and ap- 
parently respectable, who, just to gratify unholy pas- 
sion, give themselves into the hands of the seducers 
who would otherwise come to their houses of prostitu- 
tion." 

This statement would not have found its way into 
the pages of this book on the mere charge of harlots, 
but, unfortunately and unhappily, our commissioners 



106 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

are in possession of information which goes to con- 
firm it. 

Then, too, there is a large number of shop and 
office-girls, who walk the streets at night, and take 
their company into the many assignation houses and 
" European" hotels, in order that they may add to the 
miserable pittance they receive for their legitimate 
labor of the day. 

Hence, whilst no accurate figures can be given,, 
there are enough of souls going down to death, and 
dragging others with them, to make every true man 
and woman in Chicago stand aghast in horror when 
they think of the spectacle thus presented. 

There are several keepers of houses of prostitution 
n Chicago who have accumulated wealth. Their 
commercial instincts are developed to an extraordinary 
degree, but how fearful the character of their mer- 
chandise! They buy the bodies and souls of young 
girls, and sell them again for gain. To make money 
is their sole aim, and many a poor girl's remains lie 
in a dishonored grave, brought there by the " com- 
mercial instincts" of these Jezebels. 

One of the most wealthy of the class in Chicago 
boasts her philanthropy and charity. She sneers at the 
petty contributions of Christian women to worthy 
objects, and proudly calls attention to her own dona- 
tions. 

Like Ahab's Jezebel she can well afford to buy 
up vineyards and give them away to others, when she 
traffics in human souls and makes wealth out of the 
vices of men. 

These women simply profess to accept the statement 
of those men, lay and professional, and even ecclesi- 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. IO/ 

astical, who assert that prostitution is a " necessary 
evil." It is not our intention here to argue this pro- 
position."* We simply deny it most emphatically, on 
any and every ground. Such a statement is neither 
true to nature, science or morality. All are bitterly 
opposed to prostitution in any and every form. 

We will dismiss the matter at this time, merely in- 
troducing the following comment upon the subject 
taken from our cabman commissioner's report: "Men 
talk about prostitution being a * necessary evil.' 

" When I was cab driving and would be standing 
in front of one of these houses waiting for my 'fare,' who 
was inside, I used to count young men by the dozen 
going into the places. Some of them whom I knew 
I have watched, and have seen them come to a sad 
end. I have one young man in mind now as I write, 
who got so low with disease that he jumped into the 
river, glad to end his miserable life all caused by this 
' necessary ' evil. He not only threw his own life 
away, but threw a dark cloud over a whole family. 

" Another I knew, who was as bright and promis- 
ing a young man as one would see in a day's walk. I 
saw him go steadily down, until to-day he has lost the 
respect of all who knew him, and has brought the 
deepest sorrow over his whole family. 

" Another came from a good family, and, poor 

* We may not omit, for we know its increasing prevalenae the 
eagerly quoted advice of some doctors, that sexual intercourse is 
necessary for health. Such teaching is to choose one's words 
deliberately an infernal lie! Alike its existence and its condem- 
nation may be gathered from the words of Sir James Paget (Clinical 
Lectures and Essays): "Many of your patients will ask you about 
sexual intercourse, and expect you to prescribe fornication. I would 
just as soon prescribe theft or lying, or anything else God has for- 
bidden. Chastity do:S no harm to mind or body. 1 ' 



IO8 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

fellow, after finding himself diseased, and seeing that 
hd could no longer master his base appetite and low 
desires, put a revolver to his forehead, and thus ended 
his miserable life. All this from a ' necessary evil. 

"What a shame that men in this enlightened age of 
the world will not do something to stop this evil. 
These places should be guarded, and every man caught 
going there should be severely whipped. 

"If a man would realize that when he goes to a 
house of this kind he is as good as saying: ' I approve 
of this, and to-night I demand that some young girl 
must give up her innocent life, leave her home, and in a 
very short time die in a miserable and degraded state, 
all to satisfy my lust;' he would then see the awful- 
ness of this 'necessary evil ' and pray earnestly to be 
delivered from its power." 

We now turn to one of the most painful phases of 
this whole question, and that such facts as we present 
can be true is one of the great mysteries of human life. 
That they are facts, is the only apology we offer for 
exposing them, and giving a needed note of warning. 

"If ye hear without a blush 
Deeds to make the roused blood rush 
Like red lava through your veins, 
For your sisters now in chains; 
Tell me are ye fit to be 
Fathers of the brave and free? " 

In one of the Chicago morning papers of last 
February, a perfectly harmless-looking advertisement 
appeared, to the effect that a " gentleman wanted an 
American girl of from 14 to 16 years of age to do 
housework in return for fair wages, education in music, 
etc." 

A widowed mother of this city, living alone with 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. IC>9 

her two daughters one 13, the other about 16 saw 
this advertisement, and thinking it would be a help to 
her in the hard battle of life, as well as an aid to her 
growing girl, had the child answer it. She, poor woman, 
earned her livelihood by scrubbing out saloons, working 
in the early hours of the morning and the late night to 
gain the scanty pittance upon which the trio existed. 

A week after the letter was written, a well-dressed, 
elderly gentleman called at the humble home, and on 
seeing the girl, grew quite enthusiastic over her. " She 
would just suit him ; just the very kind of girl he 
wanted! Yes, they were poor, but if she would only 
please him, he would help them considerably, and they 
should never know poverty again! She would be a 
lovely girl when well dressed," etc. 

It was arranged that the girl should accept the 
situation, and go at a later date. She was to receive 
$2.50 per week, be allowed to go to school, and was to 
have a musical education. The mother, her suspicions 
scarcely aroused by such an apparently fatherly man, 
who had quite a budget of recommendations, asked 
who composed his household. The reply was: " My 
wife is dead, and I live alone with my only daughter." 

A few days later the old man came for the girl. 
In the meantime, the mother's suspicions had been 
aroused, and she rather demurred; but he assured her 
there could be no danger, and rather reluctantly she 
consented, and the girl went with him to her new home. 

And now we let our commissioner relate the story 
exactly as it was told by the girl: 

" When we got on the cars he held on to me in a 
way that made me feel as if everybody in the car would 
be looking at us. It was rather late when we got to 



IIO THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

his house, and I found his daughter was a lady of, I 
should say, 30 years of age. After I'd had something 
to eat, she went to bed, and then the old man came to 
me and wanted me to sit on his lap. I told him I 
wanted to go to bed, and I would like him to show 
me my room. He said, I should occupy a room with 
him. 'Indeed, I'll do no such thing,' I replied." 

And then, to show the unsophisticated character 
of the girl, she went on and recounted the dialogue 
which followed, in which he told her that he didn't 
want a " public girl," but a " nice girl," and he " didn't 
see why she should n't be willing to please him in this 
regard." The girl, in her replies, waxed indignant, 
and spoke in quite a loud tone, wishing to return home, 
whilst he urged her to be quiet, lest his daughter should 
hear. 

Seeing he could not prevail upon the child to 
yield to his base purposes, he showed her to her room, 
where, fortunately, although she failed to lock her 
door, she slept in security. The next day, early, she 
demanded that he take her home, and after breakfast 
he saw her a portion of the way home. 

The poor mother 'had spent a sleepless night, be- 
cause of the absence, for the first time, of her child, 
was glad when she returned, and was more thankful 
than words can tell, after hearing her story, that no 
harm had come to her. 

She says she would have exposed him then had 
she had money to do so, but what was she to do, alone 
and helpless? 

It is for the purpose of warning young girls 
against answering such speciously worded advertise- 
ments that this incident is given. 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. Ill 

We have now in our possession the following 
letter, which was sent by this old wretch to the girl 
shortly after her departure from his house. 

Miss CHICAGO. March 5, 1891. 

Have not heard from you. I told you to write after a day or 
two. If you thought I desired to drop you, you made a mistake. I 
wanted you to put a little more confidence in me, then we would 
both be happy. Would like to hear from you. 

A few days later still, another letter was received, 
and, when our commissioner began to make inquiries, 
another child was found to whom he had made the 
same proposals, and whose parents had threatened to 
expose him. In one of the letters written to these 
latter people, he said that if any harm should come to 
the child, he was abundantly able to take care of her; 
and, furthermore, that he wanted a girl whose parents 
would implicitly trust him, and not worry him by any 
suspicions that he would not do right by the child. 

This man is a large property owner in Chicago, 
and some of his lady tenants have learned to be afraid 
of him. One lady never allows him to come into her 
house, and keeps the door constantly bolted lest he 
surprise her. These facts are stated to show the gen- 
eral reputation the man has in the neighborhood where 
he lives. 

Now, suppose the parents of these children re- 
ferred to had been careless as to the morality of their 
children, as, alas! many, many parents are. His wealth 
would have purchased their acquiescence, and more 
girls would have gone to swell the ranks of the " ruined '' 
of this great city. 

This is but one of many similar cases with which 



112 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

our commissioners are fully cognizant. Here is a man, 
himself a lawyer, fully acquainted with the law, and 
therefore cautious in his wickedness; an old man, past 
the vigor of life, and possibly incapable of criminally 
assaulting a young girl, and yet, who >finds in debauch- 
ing these children of tender years by sexually exciting 
them, a kind of sensual pleasure which ministers to 
his base and depraved appetite. 

There is another man, well known to our ccmmis- 
sioners, who has corrupted eighteen young girls of 
the tender years of from eight to fourteen, and no 
one knows how many more. 

He used to beguile them into his stopping-place, 
which was convenient for such a purpose, being near 
enough to the public street, and yet away from close 
observation, and would there tamper with them. All 
these children were examined by physicians, and all 
were found to have suffered from his bestial hand- 
ling, and yet, when an effort was made to punish 
him by proving rape, or attempted rape, five reput- 
able physicians of this city went upon the witness 
stand and swore that the wretch was physically in- 
capable of committing a rape he was suffering from 
"senile dementia." He was capable enough ot per- 
forming all the onerous duties of a responsible posi- 
tion, requiring some activity and physical vigor, and, 
although the evidence of his beguiling the girls into 
his den and tampering with them was absolutely con- 
clusive, it was found impossible to convict him, owing 
to the insufficiency of the law to deal with such cases. 

The Protective Agency has repeatedly been sum- 
moned into court for the protection of little girls from 
brutes, who apparently have no fear of retribution. 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 113 

Cannot this reproach upon our boasted nineteenth 
century civilization be blotted out? May it not come, 
that public sentiment can be developed that will force 
law to be executed, and if need be, amended, so that 
innocent girls of infantile age may not fall a prey to 
brutal passion? 

The evil and corrupting influences of such men 
cannot be estimated by any of the conceptions people 
generally hold. Those who are fully aware of the 
fearful results of such tampering declare that the hor- 
rible results that accrue from this physical debasement 
are far worse than those of prostitution. 

Prostitution is a fearful vice for a young girl to 
plunge herself headlong into; the woes and horrors ot 
the whirlpool no pen can ever depict, no tongue evei 
tell ; and yet, though a fearful perversion of a God- 
given and natural function, it is a normal use of the 
sexual organs, but in the bondage produced in the 
body, mind and soul by these other practices, where 
these organs are used abnormally, there is death in- 
volved from the very inception of the habit; death to 
everything. The body loses its power, the mind its 
strength, and the soul its perceptions, and nothing but 
the open grave of pollution and disease stands before 
the poor victim of such practices. 

One of the female commissioners says, speaking of 
this foul crime against the bodies of young girls: " It 
should be punished more severely than the crime of 
murder, for it is far worse than murder. There is 
something cleanly and kind in the immediate taking 
away of a life, horrible and awful though it be, but in 
taking a young, innocent, tiny child for I have heard 
the story from the lips of mere children of a few years 



114 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

and arousing in her the sexual instinct which should 
remain dormant for many years, and thus implanting in 
her a desire for unnatural excitement, which means 
death to all that is good in body, mind and soul in her; 
such a crime is foul and detestable beyond the power of 
language to express." 

The necessity for some change in the law, to make 
it possible to punish those who seduce young girls, is 
painfully apparent in Chicago to those who observe. 

One girJ, soon to become a mother, only a few 
days ago, declared she did not believe there was a pure 
*nan or woman in existence. This statement was the 
natural outcome of the embitterment of her life caused 
by her betrayal and the consequent disgrace heaped 
upon her, because she loved much, but not wisely. 

Another poor girl speaking of the man who had 
betrayed her, said, " I hope the Lord will forgive him. 
I believe He will, but I don't think I shall live long 
enough to do so." 

If the number of illegitimate children born each 
year in this city was given, the figures would astonish 
those who read them. A visit to any of the hospitals 
will open the eyes of those unacquainted with the facts. 
Many are the poor babes born of young mothers with- 
out wedding-ring, or other name than their own to 
bestow upon their offspring. In the County Hospital, 
the Infirmary, St. Luke's, the Women's Hospital, the 
Erring Woman's Refuge, the Home of the Good 
Shepherd, and many other places, these waifs of sin 
and sorrow are launched into life's troubled sea, handi- 
capped for the race before them in the very start. 

Another outcome of the " social evil" is the mur- 
der of born and unborn infants. No statement of this 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 115 

evil would be even approximately complete that failed 
to present the truth in regard to this latter awful, and 
peculiarly American, sin. 

We are not prepared to give definite information 
exposing the horrors of the "baby-farming " system in 
Chicago, but, that baby-farms exist here there is no 
question. Of their general character all readers are 
doubtless aware. 

The keepers of baby- farms are murderers posing 
as humanitarians. Their places are described by Mr. 
Elbridge T. Gerry as " concerns by means of which 
persons usually of disreputable character, eke out a liv- 
ing by taking two or three, or four babies to board. 
They are the charges of outcasts, or illegitimate 
children. They feed them on sour milk, and give them 
paregoric to keep them quiet, until they die." 

In New York there is a law compelling them to 
register, but in Chicago the sole register of them is kept 
by the devil, and he keeps the account to himself; 
choosing that his victims shall know only the one place 
he sends them to in order that they may hide their 
shame. 

There are such " homes" in Chicago, where poor, 
unfortunate women await the awful hour of dishonored 
motherhood. Their offspring fill up the ranks of the 
babes who have died through ' ; inanition." 

One of the lady commissioners who was investi- 
gating a case, visited one of these hell-holes, and the 
snappy, suspicious way in which she was received, 
together with the parting warning, " Never you come 
again!" showed that they do not court investigation, 
or desire that enlightened public attention should be 
called to them or their work. 



Il6 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

Of the murder of " unborn" babes much might be 
said. Dr. H. S. Pomeroy, in his " Ethics of Mar- 
riage," makes the following fearful charge: " It would 
be very difficult to find a hamlet in the country, or a 
street in a city, where unborn children had not been 
destroyed by those who were bound by every law of 
God and man to cherish and protect them." 

Again, he says: "A vast army of women have 
gone to early graves, and their death certificates have 
read ' hemorrhage,' when the word ought to have been 
written abortion! Another vast army of women who 
are invalids burdens to themselves and others ought 
to march under a banner bearing the same shameful 
and loathsome word." 

These words are peculiarly true of Chicago, as of 
all large centers, where the desire to enjoy " society" 
life overmasters the natural home instincts of woman, 
hood. Dr. Pomeroy further says: 

" It must not be supposed that the physician ha*, 
the most trouble with those who belong to the lower- 
classes. These give comparatively little trouble in this 
way. They seldom apply to the reputable physician, 
and when they do they are easily refused. The real 
difficulty comes from so-called highly respectable 
people, even from leaders in social and religious move- 
ments. We never know when some one of these may 
not implore one of us, as a family physician, to do thai 
which is a sin before the law of God and man ; and 
when to the entreaty there are added the tears and 
pleading of a charming woman, the situation becomes 
embarrassing and unpleasant in the extreme. This 
seems an ungracious thing to say, especially as the phy- 
sician is under peculiar and delicate bonds to respect 



THE SOCIAL EVIL. 117 

ehe secrets of his patrons. But the time is already past 
when silence could be a virtue, and it seems as though 
the very stones would cry out if he does not give speedy 
warning of the danger which threatens our social life 
and health." 

The police records show that men and women are 
frequently arrested for the detestable crime of procur- 
ing abortion, but they convey only the faintest idea of 
its extent. The perpetrators and their victims seldom 
fall into the hands of the officers of justice. 

O damnable fiend of lust! How hateful, how 
awful> how horrible thou art in thine every feature, 
when thy form is seen by the clear eye of purity. Thy 
passions are hotter than a thousand furnaces thy 
cruelty more relentless than that of any Hindoo mon- 
arch thy tortures infinitely more exquisite in their re- 
finements of anguish than ever Spanish inquisitor or 
barbarous Indian inflicted thy stealth more crafty than 
the sleuth-hound thy hideousness more horrible than 
gaunt-eyed famine thy swift-dealing destructiveness 
more sure than earthquake or volcano thy end more 
to be dreaded than death in battlefield or on the gallows. 

With alluring craftiness, and wisdom gained by 
centuries of exercise, thou liest in wait to trap and slay 
the fairest of Chicago's sons and daughters, and thou 
trailest thy serpent's slime into every path and byway 
of this Garden City of Lake Michigan. Would to 
God the men and women who sweetly move in fancied, 
though false security, would awaken from their sleep, 
and, fearlessly hunting thee in high places and low, 
would resolve to never rest, never cease, until thou 
wert for ever slain! 



Il8 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

The following words of the Bishop of Durham, 
in addressing a Diocesan Conference, have the root of the 
matter in them: "What it seems to me we want is the 
formation of a vigorous public opinion on the subject. 
Public opinion, indeed, will not pierce the inmost re- 
cesses of the heart; but no one who looks into himself, 
and questions himself frankly, will refuse to own how 
much he owes to public opinion in other provinces of 
morality, as honesty and truthfulness, for instance. It 
keeps the duty always before him till the duty becomes 
a habit. It furnishes material for the higher religious 
motives to act upon. Thus, indirectly, it quickens and 
stimulates his conscience. Now, in this matter of purity, 
public opinion is so feeble that it can scarcely be said to 
exist at all. This is what we wish to correct. We 
desire, God helping us, to create quite another state of 
things, where public opinion and individual conscience 
shall act and react on one another in this matter of 
purity, as they do in those other provinces of morality 
of which I have spoken. For this purpose it is neces- 
sary to speak out boldly. 

" What do you suppose would have become 
of Christian ethics if the Apostles had observed the 
same reticence which we are content to observe? The 
strength of sin is secrecy. Denounce it boldly, and you 
will find the conscience of men on your side. But you 
shrink from association for this purpose. You are 
afraid of scandals. I tell you plainly, so am I. In 
proportion as the movement succeeds the chance of 
scandals increases also. But what then? Shall this 
certainty of scandals paralyze us? Who was it that 
said, 'It must needs be that offences come?' If this 
dread of scandals had prevailed the Christian church 



THE SOCIAL -EVIL. I iy 

would never have been. The possibility of scandal 
varies, in most cases, directly as the importance of the 
work and the magnitude of the undertaking." 

Ellice Hopkins, the devoted champion of the 
White Cross movement, cries out in ringing tones, "A 
purity intent on taking care of its own alabaster skin, 
recking not what helpless children are suffocated in 
mud as long as it is not defiled with the touch of it; 
full of the old nervous ' touch not, taste not, handle not' 
spirit; bandaged up with this restriction and that, lest 
it should fall to pieces; and when it comes to saving 
another from defilement of body and soul, nervously 
shuffling into a pair of lavender kid gloves, and mutter- 
ing something about its being ' such a very delicate 
subject.' This is not that militant, sun-clad power 
which Milton dreamed of rushing down like a sword of 
God to smite everything low and base and impure; a 
purity as of mountain water or living fire, whose very 
nature it is not only to be pure itself, but to destroy 
impurity in others." 



Massage Parlors. 



" And he said unto me, Go in and behold the wicked 
abominations they do here. So I went in and saw." 

Ezekiel viii:g-io. 

THE " massage" department of the social vice is 
one that has only sprung into existence quite 
recently. Our investigations in this line will 
be appalling and horrifying to those who,like ourselves, 
before our enlightenment, looked upon the massage 
parlor as a perfectly respectable and legitimate place 
for curative purposes. 

And, of course, there are good massage parlors, 
where skilled operators, under professional guidance 
produce the most beneficial results; and, of these, we 
have no other than words of commendation. 

But, like all things else that are good, the massage 
parlor has its horrible, vile, unclean and bestial counter- 
feit, where prostitution in the gauziest of disguises is 
rampant. 

In some places the price of the bath does, indeed, 
include the body of the operator. In other and more 
" refined " parlors the manager of the bath is too 
cunning to run any such risks. She receives the bath 
fee, and then the girls can make whatever they choose 
besides, she allowing them a full hour for each visitor. 

Stand and watch, and to one house we will show 
you that a priest and a protestant minister are regular 



MASSAGE PARLORS. 121 

visitants; at another, leading business men, married as 
well as single, are regular patrons; at another, young 
beardless boys who come out showing their degrada- 
tion on their, as yet, unhardened, faces. 

And this is going on every day in every week in 
Chicago, right under the very eyes of good people and 
they know nothing of it. 

Of such papers as advertise these infamous resorts 
words cannot express too great contempt. They charge 
an extra price of ten cents a line for such advertise- 
ments, including clairvoyants, mediums, quack medi- 
cines and the like. 

Why? 

If a massage parlor is a regular and legitimate 
business, why should those who advertise such business 
be charged twenty-five cents a line for advertisements, 
when other legitimate businesses are only charged 
fifteen cents? There is something wrong on the face 
of it, and if the proprietors of such papers do not know 
that they are giving publication to the advertisements 
of harlots and abandoned women we now make the 
definite charge that they are, and beg them to thor- 
oughly investigate these places before again admitting 
such advertisements to their columns. 

It is not a rare thing to see in the columns of the 
<daily papers, such advertisements as these: 



w 



ANTED A good, reliable Girl for a Massage 
Parlor. Address Office. 



ANY Young Lady out of employment will find 
pleasant work and good wages by applying 
at once to . 

Hundreds of people who live in the city, and who 



122 MASSAGK PARLORS. 

are well acquainted with its wiles, would see nothing at 
all dangerous in these advertisements; and to thousands 
of pure girls in the country they would present oppor- 
tunities to be seized, if they were requiring a situation. 
But when we assure the pure and the innocent that in 
many of these parlors young girls " good, reliable 
girls " are required to give baths of a variety of kinds 
to any and all men who patronize the establishment, 
they will see where the danger and horror of the mas- 
sage parlor lies. 

Talk about the vileness of the worship of Venus, 
Aphrodite, Astarte, Mylitta and Kybele! Here is 
something equally bad. The bath made the pretext 
for the gratification of the basest sensuality, and innocent 
girls daughters of true mothers are entrapped and 
enticed into these dens of lust and shame. 

Not long ago the keeper of one of these places 
applied to the matron of a mission for a girl to work in 
his massage parlors. The matron was unacquainted 
with the details of the work, and, as was her wont, 
asked for full information. When told that the girl 
was expected to bathe and massage men, as well as 
women, she expressed her astonishment at such a sys- 
tem being in vogue in Chicago, when the applicant for 
the girl replied that " there was nothing in that it 
was as common as could be!" 

The two engaged in argument; the matron seek- 
ing to show the danger to any girl, and especially to 
one who was morally weak, in such a position; and he, 
on the other hand, contending that she had a wrong 
view of respectability and right, a girl could be a 
" woman" anywhere if she would be " she was just 
as safe in his parlors massaging men as if she were 



MASSAGE PARLORS. 123 

selling goods in a store." He had had one girl from 
the mission, and she had been " steady and good," and 
he wanted another. Needless to say, the girl did not go. 

Here is a statement of facts which can be verified 
if necessary, to show how the keepers of these vile 
dens trade on the purity of their victims. 

Not long ago, one of the Christian institutions of 
this city received word that a young country girl was 
employed in one of these places, was anxious to leave, 
but did not know how to get away. Help was asked 
for her. A young man was sent to find out what 
could be done. He went to the massage parlor and 
saw the keeper, who told him he could have a good 
bath. She had just received a nice, fresh girl from 
the country, who would suit him well. He paid the 
price asked, went into the bathroom, and there stood 
this young girl. He began to talk with her, and told 
her she need not be afraid of him. He would not 
harm her. The poor, trembling girl, realizing that he 
was a friend, opened her heart to him, and said she 
had come to the place in answer to an advertisement 
similar to the one given above. She was to board with 
the woman of the house, and at first things seemed all 
right, but it was only a day before she found out the 
real character of the house. It professed to be a bath 
and massage parlor, and the girls were required to give 
a little massage " as a blind," but the place, in reality, 
was a house of prostitution. There were three girls 
kept, and whilst the woman's husband was opposed to 
it, she herself would carry it on because there was 
" money in it." The price for a bath was $2, of 
which the keeper got half and the girl kept the other 
half. She begged the young man to do what he could 



124 MASSAGE PARLORS. 

to release her from such a horrible place, and he 
promised that a few hours should see her once more 
free. He went down to the Mission, and it was 
arranged that at a certain hour and place he should 
meet the girl and bring her to the matron, who would 
find a home for her. 

The poor girl was hysterical with joy when she 
found herself out of the den; and in the loving arms of 
the kindly Christian matron sobbed out her story. She 
said one man came into the bath-room, and his presence 
gave her a nervous chill. She went and stood by the 
stove, whilst he, looking at her in astonishment, asked, 
"What's the matter?" 

" I'm chilly! " was the reply. 

" But your cheeks are flushed, and red as crimson," 
said he, putting his hand upon hers, "and your hands 
are burning." 

The poor girl burst into tears and, confessing her 
fears, threw herself upon his mercy, and the visitor, his 
manliness aroused by her wretchedness, endeavored to 
comfort her, whilst she explained that she came here 
under false pretenses; she was deceived. He expressed 
his sorrow for her and left without molesting her. 

It is thought that it was this man who sent word 
to the religious institution that aided the girl to escape. 

At another of the houses visited, our commissioner 
reports as follows: 

" On the second floor of a down-town business 
block, business -street, business all around, where 
hundreds pass daily, a sign hangs out with this inscrip- 
tion : * Massage, Manicure and Chiropodist.' Knock- 
ing at the door, it was opened responsively, and an at- 
tractive, ladylike person directed us to the office, a 



MASSAGE PARLORS. 125 

little dingy-looking room, about 6x12, and very poorly 
furnished. Here we could hear, between the pauses of 
the conversation, the sound of a piano out of tune, being 
played in a rather lively way. This was from another 
room, where also the sounds of men's and women's 
voices could be heard. We inquired if we could have 
'a massage,' and were informed: 

"'Yes, what kind of massage do you wish? 
Swedish, dry rubbing, or alcohol?' 

"'What's the price?' 

"'Two dollars.' 

"Meantime, having signified our desire, we were 
taken upstairs, where we found the massage furniture 
to consist of a small iron cot, with mattress and blanket. 
In an adjacent room were a bath-tub and general wash- 
ing appliances. 

" And now being alone with our attendant, we 
thought we might make a few inquiries as to the 
character of the house. 'Well, is this a ' fancy ' house, 
or is it what it is represented on the sign to be? ' 

"'Don't know what you mean! I know only this, 
that as far as / am concerned, no man dare approach 
me. I took up this business because I could not get 
enough to do as a book-keeper, and must find work of 
some kind, but I would be glad to get out of here if I 
could. I have been married. Of course, if you wish 
to see the ladies,' there are two, I will send them to 
you.' 

"'We noticed two bold-faced, short-haired girls 
passing the room door and presumed these were the 
ladies.' 

" 'We declined, saying, 'No! but we wished to 
know just what was being done here.' 



126 MASSAGE PARLORS. 

'"Well, we do a rushing business from early 
morning to late at night. We have more than we can 
attend to, principally amongst business men.' 

" 'How did you come to take this up? ' 

" 'I wasn't able to make enough money at book- 
keeping (from six to seven dollars a week) to pay my 
way. Here I get from ten to twelve dollars a week.' 

" 'Doesn't this business sicken you, with all its vile 
associations? ' 

"'Yes! I am thoroughly disgusted with it, and 
would give anything to get a job at book-keeping or 
anything which would support me honestly.' 

" While we were talking, a colored waiter 
announced that our fair conversationalist had better 
hurry up. ' Somebody wanted a massage.' 

" We hoped that she might succeed in obtaining 
employment at better business; thanked her for her 
courtesy; and stepped out into the busy street again, 
wondering at the snares and devices which are laid in 
Chicago for ' SMART BUSINESS MEN.' " 



Procuresses, Abductors, Etc. 



" Your adversary, the devil, walketh 

about, seeking whom he may devour." 

Peter the Apostle. 

THE system of " procuring " young girls for the 
vilest purposes obtains in Chicago to as great an 
extent proportionately as it does in London, 
Paris, or any other large city. It is simply impossible 
that in a brief survey of the subject more than the 
merest outline of the facts of the cases can be give 
which are in the hands of our various commissioners* 
There are men procurers as well as women procurers, 
or "procuresses" as they are termed. Their methods of 
procedure are many and varied. Many of the pro- 
curesses are to be found on the incoming trains, where, 
with practiced eye they " spot " young, fresh-looking 
girls from country places. It is easy for them to be- 
come acquainted with such girls, and by a line of adroit 
questioning they soon draw from them their destina- 
tion. 

"Chicago! indeed! why I'm going to Chicago! 
Are you going to live there, or only for a visit? Have 
you got a situation? Were you ever there before? Do 
you know anybody there?" 

Oftentimes they find perfectly "green" girls who, 
determined to be the "architects of their own fortunes," 
are wending their way Chicago ward to find employ- 



128 PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 

ment. Better and easier prey than this is not wanted, 
On arriving at the great depot, possibly late at night, 
where the whirl and confusion are sufficient to distract 
even the most experienced, the young girl, not know- 
ing where to go, is easily induced by the " kind lady 
friend" to accompany her to her own boarding place. 
Here she is either forcibly detained, or drugged and 
violated, and, in the latter case, the first step taken, her 
mind filled with an awful sense of shame, and recogniz- 
ing the difficulties ever placed in the way of reform, she 
is induced to live a life of shame. 

The procuress takes her to a "fast house " where 
she receives her pay from the madame, and the patrons 
of the house are duly advised that a new, fresh girl 
from the country is at their service, and thus the " high 
character" of the house is built up and maintained. 

But oftentimes the fate of the girl is more awful 
than this, impossible though it may seem. We have 
several, nay many, instances where girls have been thus 
entrapped, and, when once in the house, forcibly de- 
tained under lock and key until one of three things 
occurred escape, submission or death. 

Can it be possible to conceive a more awful fate 
for a girl who wishes to be pure. Incarcerated in one 
of these vile dens, where no cry for help is heeded, 
where violence is easily resorted to, what chance has a 
poor, inexperienced girl in the clutches of such vul- 
tures? She must bear the constant violation of her 
person until in desperation she sullenly submits, or she 
is favored by some other inmate and allowed to escape, 
or death puts an end to an existence which is worse 
than a living hell to her. 

In the depots it is not an uncommon thing for the 



PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. I2Q 

procuresses to " be in waiting " for victims. A strange 
girl is soon known, and just as the one on the train was 
decoyed, so is she, and wakes up the next morning too 
often to find herself ruined and in a house of prosti- 
tution. 

It is also said but of this we confess we have but 
statements and many suspicious cases, but no definite 
proof that there are cabmen in this city who are in 
league with the keepers of these houses, and when they 
are asked by country girls to take them to some good 
boarding-house or hotel they convey them to their 
patrons, receiving a good round sum if the girl is suit- 
able for their purposes, and can by fair means or foul 
be induced to stay. 

The madame of one of the most elaborate and 
splendid houses in Chicago told one of our commission- 
ers that she didn't care if she lost every girl she had in 
the house, for she knew exactly where to go to get all 
the " nice, fresh, sweet girls " she wanted. The sup- 
ply was greater than the demand. 

The daring boldness of procuresses will be well 
understood when the reader learns that they have ob- 
tained visitor's tickets which gave them entrance to the 
wards of the county hospital at all times. Here they 
could spy out pretty girls, returning to health, whose 
presence in the county hospital gave proof of their 
poverty. Such as these are easy prey in their crafty 
hands, for, what with cajoling, persuading, promising, 
all under the guise of the most disinterested friendship, 
the poor girls, anxious to earn a living, and thankful 
for an easy position, are only too glad to accept their 
offers, and once in their clutches, it is a difficult matter 
to rescue them. 



I3O PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 

\Vc are authoritatively informed that the warden 
of the County Hospital recently, on this very score, 
called in some of these regular visitor's tickets, and now 
demands a more careful and thorough examination into 
the standing of those who apply for them, and that 
this precaution was rendered necessary because of the 
discovery of the hellish work going on we have just 
described. 

A girl, not yet 15 years of age, came up from a 
town in a neighboring state. She had been a clerk in 
a grocery store in her native town, and things not being 
so comfortable at home as she desired, the thought that 
in Chicago work could be found and an independent 
living made, urged the child to leave home and come 
here. After she had been here a few days, the 
weather being cold and frosty, she slipped on the curb- 
stone and broke her ankle. Helpless and alone, with- 
out home and money, there was%ut one place for her 
to go, the County Hospital, and thither she was sent. 
After awhile she was removed to the hospital at Dun- 
ning, where she remained for several months. Just as 
she was about to be discharged a lady (?) came, and, 
passing through the ward spoke to her, and asked if 
she wished a good position as a nurse-girl. A glowing 
account was given to her of the sweet and beau- 
tiful children in their elegant home, surrounded by all 
refinements, and the poor child, her imagination thus 
worked upon, went and asked the doctor if she might 
be discharged. The doctor gave her the permit to 
leave; she was brought by the " lady " into the city; a 
hack met them at the depot and she was taken to a 
house of shame and there kept under lock and key for 
a lengthened period. 



PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 13! 

A lady commissioner visiting the house was heard 
by the imprisoned child pleading with another of the 
girls to leave her life of sin, and the final plea struck 
an attentive ear: " If you do get tired of this place 

come to us at and we'll care for you!" The 

young prisoner determined, if possible, to escape, and a 
few days later, her door being accidentally left un- 
locked, she ran out, and escaping detection, found her 
way to the house, where loving hearts were ready to 
welcome and help her. The " madame " of the house 
was arrested, and though the evidence was strong and 
clear, it was not enough to legally convict her, and she 
escaped the punishment she so richly deserved. 

Not long ago in Harrison Street police station, a 
young girl found in a house of ill-fame, who appeared 
to be under age, was locked up. The police matron 
asked her, " Why she was in that horrible house?" and 
received an equivocal reply. No straight answer could 
be gained from her, until the sergeant came and de- 
manded a true answer, which was given. In half an 
hour the man who had taken her to the place was 
found, and it turned out he had betrayed her, taken her 
to this place and had been paid for so doing, yet, in this 
case, as in many others, the legal difficulties in the way 
were such that the only sentence he received was six 
months in the Bridewell, whither he was sent. 

Here is a case just heard before one of the courts 
of this city: A sleek-looking fellow took a young girl 
looking not older than 13 or 14 from the home of her 
aunt where she was living. He was on good terms 
with the family, and said they were but going down to 
see the girl's mother. Instead of taking her to her 
mother's, he took her to a house of prostitution on 



132 PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 

Fourth Avenue, where fortunately they were arrested 
before the poor child was harmed. The judge gave 
the scoundrel a scathing rebuke and held him over to 
the criminal court in bonds of $800. 

Many a wretch like this plays into the hands of the 
keepers of these vile houses. A girl if taken there and 
ruined and deserted by her " lover," is easily per- 
suaded to remain an inmate of the house, whilst the vile 
reptile who took her there is well paid for his share of 
the proceedings. 

In the Philanthropist for August, 1887, an article 
appeared, in which the writer says: "A consecrated 
Christian woman, prominent in work for women in 
one of our more distant Southern States, writes us 
earnestly on the painful subject of the cruel, immoral 
traffic in women and girls. ' In every place to which I 
go,' she writes, * I visit these houses [of debauchery] 
and could the mothers just see what I see, oh, how 
much more would be done to stop this traffic in women, 
for I can call it nothing else!' She adds: * One man 
in a neighboring city goes North and ships girls for 
this country just think of it! I have been told on 
reliable authority that on his last trip to Chicago he 
brought twenty-eight. Can we do nothing to prevent 
this? I have seen and talked with some of these very 
young girls." 

There is every reason to believe that a regular 
business of importation of French girls for immoral 
purposes between Canada and Chicago is carried on. 
We have evidence enough to show that it is a business 
in which quite a number of both men and women are 
engaged. The girls sent to this city are mainly the 
daughters of poor French families growing girls, 



PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 1 33 

\vho are not educated to fit themselves for service, 
and who help form that large floating population in a 
city with which it is so hard to deal. The procuresses 
readily enlist their sympathy by flattering them with 
promises of easy and lucrative employment, and the 
poor creatures are ready to accept anything which even 
suggests an improvement over their present wretched 
state of life. 

We are informed but cannot vouch for the ac- 
curacy of the statement that there exists in Montreal 
a regular clearing-house for these soon-to-be prostitutes. 
They are there instructed how to answer any and all 
questions which may be put to them by the " too im- 
pertinent" officials, and being generally mature-looking, 
are told that, in future, their ages must always be over 
eighteen. 

Through the vigilance of one of the grand so- 
cieties for the suppression of such vices in Chicago, 
several of these girls have been stopped and returned 
to their homes, and from them we learn that these girls, 
of tender years, who have been used to obey the most 
cruel mandates of parents and others at home, are the 
ones who, in the lowest Chicago brothels, submit to the 
most bestial practices, and exhibit themselves in them, 
in a manner that would put Sodom and Gomorrah and 
Babylon and Corinth to shame. 

Three arrests have been made in connection with 
such cases, but each time the prosecution failed on 
account of the difficulties encountered. It was hard 
work to obtain the necessary evidence, almost impossible 
to prove the girls' ages, hard to find their p-arents, and, 
if found, a most arduous task to persuade them to come 
4o Chicago from Canada to testify; more difficult still 



134 PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 

to keep them from being bribed when brought here; 
and, worst of all, they were ever circumvented by a law 
which seems to have been framed with the express 
object of preventing any conviction under its operation. 

M was a French-Canadian girl decoyed from 
Canada to Chicago and kept in one of the houses of 
vice under lock and key. One of our commissioners 
found her, set carefully to work and finally rescued her, 
and to-day she is living, happily married, with a de- 
voted husband, in one of the suburbs of this city. 

Another form of this evil which is growing to 
alarming proportion is found in the existence of houses 
in which girls and boys of from 14 to 20 years of age 
are regularly admitted for immoral purposes. And this 
is by no means left to chance custom and patronage, 
such as the boy who has over-persuaded a girl, and who 
here finds a willing landlord or landlady to aid him in 
his nefarious plans. Oh no! The children of darkness 
are far wiser in their generation than the children of 
light. The passions of men and women are, to these 
base wretches, a legitimate field from which they may 
reap a golden harvest, if they but sow diligently even 
the smallest seed. And sow they do in a most effectual 
manner! Pretty young misses of school-girl age are 
dressed up and made to look as simple and fascinating 
as possible, and then sent out as decoys to places of 
amusement: such as beer-gardens, the parks, toboggan 
slides, skating rinks and the like, and even to church 
socials. Here they come in contact with growing boys 
in whom the passionate fires of youth are just beginning 
to burn. Under a false system of education which either 
leaves them in ignorance of the ethics of the sexual life r 
or, worse still, bids them indulge in order to prove their 



PROCUKFSSKS, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 135 

manhood, these lads are easy and willing prey. Once 
induced to visit these houses, they are readily persuaded 
to " call again ;" inclination and passion urge them on- 
ward, and it is almost as easy to stop a brick in its 
downward course when hurled fi'om a great height as 
it is to stop a young man who has hurled himself 
through the safe-guards of purity over the precipice 
of passion. 

The girls themselves are inveigled into such 
houses under promise of easy work, good wages, 
plenty of nice clothes, and an abundance of luxurious 
food. For a time, the "pretty" side of the life, only, 
is presented to them. They are praised and feted, 
and called pretty, and made to feel their importance 
in the little circle which has just received them, until, 
their little empty heads turned by the flattery they 
have received, their imaginations skilfully excited and 
inflamed, and passions roused by an insidious course of 
carefully graded lessons in vicious pandering, given by 
the " madame " of the establishment, they are led to 
sacrifice their virtue, and this once accomplished, the 
poor, giddy things are completely and for ever en- 
slaved, unless God in His mercy, or man in his hu- 
manity, rescues them. 

In one sense it is not to be wondered at that these 
girls are so easily ensnared. Oftentimes both parents 
aie compelled to work hard for the bare necessaries of 
life, and they are willing to accept any offer that seems 
to relieve them of some of their already overpowering 
burdens. The girls themselves, compelled when very 
young to work to help swell the family purse, re- 
pressed in all their childhood's feelings, deprived of 
legitimate and healthful recreation, naturally crave fun, 



136 PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 

and this, alas! too often means some unnatural excite- 
ment or reckless amusement. This condition of mind 
renders them easy of approach to those who seek to 
lure them to destruction. These human serpents are 
as wary and shrewd as their creeping counterparts, with 
the knowledge and added intelligence of human beings. 
They are ever alert the others are simple, innocent, 
ignorant and unwary. Their weaknesses are the very 
baits used in the traps laid to ensnare them into lives of 
sin, and. the laws of the state are so easily evaded, and 
conviction so difficult to obtain, that this unholy traffic 
in the souls and bodies of our Chicago girls is going on 
daily almost unheeded, and almost as entirely un- 
hindered. 

About two years ago a Chicago city justice sent 
to one of the lady commissioners, and after talking over 
the foregoing fearful condition of affairs with her, 
asked her if she could not make an especial endeavor 
to secure legislation which would enable those justices 
who so desired, to punish, with a severe penalty, the 
wicked men and women who so traded upon the ignor- 
ance and passion of the young. The commissioner 
immediately" wrote to one of the state senators the 
legislature being then in session and asked him to 
come to Chicago for a conference. He was then per- 
sonally requested to prepare such a bill, and endeavor 
to secure its passage, but he immediately declined, 
with an abrupt: 

" It's no use trying! It can't be done!" 

" But why not? " asked the lady. 

" It would be an utter impossibility. The country 
members could never be made to believe that such a 
bill was necessary. They would say Chicago is such a 



PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 137 

\vicked city that its legislators have actually begun to 
imagine evils; evils so fearful that it is not possible that 
they exist in any other way than in their imagination, 
and that such a bill would only give rise to blackmail 
and extortion." 

And there the matter was allowed to rest. But 
the fearful demoralizing and debauching of our young 
women and men still goes on, the awful facts of odious 
horror are still there, and the names of the justice and 
commissioner and senator will be given, if necessary, to 
responsible persons who desire to work for the removal 
of such a vile system from the city of Chicago. 

To show the need for the full light of knowledge 
being poured upon the facts as they exist, it is but nec- 
cessary to remind our readers that before 1886 the law 
of the State of Illinois allowed a girl of twelve years to 
consent to her own ruin. Think of it! The solons of 
Illinois, men of years of wisdom, men of families, hus- 
bands, fathers, brothers ; these men passed a law that 
would protect any vile brute who assaulted a helpless 
girl if she happened to be twelve years of age a time 
at which many girls have not even reached puberty. 

In the winter of 1886, in response to the urgent 
appeals of hundreds of Chicago's noblest women and 
men, the age of consent was raised tojourteen, although 
eighteen was earnestly asked. And there it stands to- 
<day, a disgrace and a menace to the people of this great 
city. Why in the name of all that is holy and good 
should men have a right to entangle a girl, and by 
cajolery and false promises seduce her, and if she be but 
fourteen years of age, she must bear all the burden, all 
the shame, all the pain, all the horror, and he get off 
scot free? Many girls of fourteen are mere innocent 



138 PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 

babes as far as knowledge of evil is concerned, and yet, 
at that age, they may give consent to that of which they 
know little then, but which afterwards may mean 
eternal ruin. Such a law is an outrage upon manhood. 
The men who acquiesced in its passage deserve the 
pillory, and we trust the pillory of an outraged public 
opinion will, ere long, be the punishment of all legisla- 
tors who stand in the way of making this law as it 
should be, and that is, abolishing the age of consent en- 
tirely. Recognizing the power of a man over a woman 
who believes in his love, no woman, under any circum- 
stances, should be allowed to give her consent to the 
violation of her own chastity, and man, as the stronger, 
more self-reliant of the two, should suffer if he allow 
his passion to over-master him. As it is, the woman 
has all the suffering, and the man escapes. This is 
manifestly a gross injustice. 

Here is a recent case. A lad not yet 16, a girl 13. 
The lad enticed the girl away from her home, took her 
to his married sister's, and kept her there two or three 
days. They went for a \valk each day and two or 
three times he induced her to yield to his desires. The 
law in this case is powerless to touch this vile youth. 
Had he been 16 years of age, his crime would have sent 
him to a penitentiary, but because he is under that age, 
he is allowed to go scot free. On the other hand a girl 
at fourteen years of age can give consent to a violation 
of her person. Look at this glorious consistency ! A 
lad of sixteen is not responsible, but a girl of fourteen 
can be cajoled into yielding her virtue, and the scoun- 
drel who thus persuaded her can walk out of court an 
" innocent person " in the eyes of the law. Call this 
honor! It is law, fit for the regions of the lost; 



PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 139 

honor fit for fiends, viler than Sodom, Corinth or 
Babylon. 

Men of Chicago, how long will you allow such . 
things as these to exist without uttering your loud and 
successful protest against them? Change the law! 
Make it impossible for any woman to legally shield her 
person, and thus shield the man who seduces her, no 
matter what her age may be. The age of consent 
should be raised from fourteen years, not to " eighteen, 
but eighty," and the sooner this is done, the sooner will 
these foul seducers be amenable to the law for their 
abominable, soul-destroying work. 

That we have spoken strictly within the bounds of 
moderation in dealing with these crimes against young 
girls and the difficulties in the way of punishing them 
will be apparent from a careful perusal of the following 
extract taken from the report of the " Protective 
Agency for Women and Children," whose grand and 
noble work ought to commend it to the financial aid 
and moral support of every true man and woman in 
Chicago: 

" Of the deepest, deadliest, most dastardly crimes committed 
upon young girls and children, this is not the place to speak in de- 
tail. It is here that we find the most cruel wrongs, and the greatest 
difficulties to encounter. The more virtuous and modest a girl is, 
the more she shrinks from the terrible torturing ordeal of the 
criminal court. Every womanly instinct of that nature which has 
been so outraged revolts against it. If the criminal, by any of that 
hocuj-pocus so well known to criminal lawyers, succeeds in obtain- 
ing a new trial, it is almost impossible to induce the poor victim to 
appear a second time, to tell the story of her wrongs. She prefers 
to suffer in silence, and though we may regret, who can wonder? 
Not, certainly, any of those women who have sat beside these poor 
girls in the crowded court-room, who have heard the loathing 
aspersions cast upon them, who have watched the vile croAd that 



140 PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 

gathers there, all eyes focussed on the weeping, trembling creature, 
friendless in that throng of strange men. If your daughter or mine 
stood there, the victim of so foul a wrong, would you not say, that 
of all places in this wide world, the place for a pure and good 
woman was in that torture chamber, beside that poor young girl? 
Would you not feel that every lady in the land should stand by her, 
to heal her broken heart, and lift her up out of her despair ? So we 
feel we ought to do for all the daughters of the Heavenly Father, 
our sisters. 

Since this chapter was put in type another fearful 
case of abduction has been brought to our notice. To- 
day \ May 12, i So i, a white girl escaped from a house 

of prostitution kept on . This is her story as told 

to us. We have not yet had time to carefully investi- 
gate as to its truth, but give it as we received it. 

A man met her on the street and asked where 
she was going. Her reply was, she wished to go home. 
He said he would take her home, and at once walked 

with her to a place on avenue. The girl was 

pretty, and as simple as a child, and said she had no 
idea whatever as to the nature of the place to which 
she was being taken. The house was kept by a col- 
ored woman, who, seeing the childishness of the girl, 
determined to keep her. The man went away promis- 
ing to return, but was never seen again. From that 
hour until she escaped to-day the girl was kept under 
strict surveillance. Her dresses were taken from her 
and cut down until the skirts only reached to the knees, 
so that she could not go on the streets and thus escape. 
During the whole of her captivity she was required to 
pay $20 a week for her room and board, and this had to 
be made from negroes and Chinamen. If she failed to 
make that amount she was beaten severely by the cruel 
*' madame." Most of the men who came were drunk 



PROCURESSES, ABDUCTORS, ETC. 141 

and cruel to her, but if she complained she was whipped 
and told to hold her tongue. The child came from 
Germany a little over two years ago; does not speak 
much English, and was under age when taken to this 
horrible place. 

Our chief commissioner has placed the case in the 
hands of the proper authorities, and if any punishment 
can be awarded to the wretched woman who keeps this 
vile den we shall do our utmost to have it awarded. 

The man who took her to the place was undoubt- 
edly a procurer, and thus it is that " slavery " in its 
worst forms takes place right under our very observa- 
tion. We will take any responsible committee to this 
girl, so that her story may be investigated by them, as 

<as to the others we have reported upon. 



Observations on the 
Making of Criminals. 



" Evil communications corrupt good manners." 

Paul. 

" Satan lays the snare, and children are his victims." 

Anthony Com stock, 

CRIMINALS exist. They are born and made. 
Heredity, which shows itself in natural ten- 
dency, environment and education are all we 
need to know to determine what made the criminal. 

These we shall briefly consider. Briefly of neces- 
sity, not because of the non-importance of the subject. 

These pages are not written to instruct our youth 
in the vice and wickedness that exists in the world, but 
for the purpose of showing to parents, teachers and all 
who love the young, the dangers to which they are ex- 
posed, so that the necessary warnings may be given, 
and restraints properly applied. 

The influence of heredity in the making of crimin- 
als cannot be too strongly emphasized. There is a 
growing literature upon this subject which should be 
carefully read by those who are desirous of helping 
stem the tide of evil. The history of the Jukes family, 
a band of notorious criminals in New York, shows how 
tendency to vice is inherited. Like produces like. As 



THE MAKING [INALS. 143 

are the father and mother so are the children. Hence 
the necessity of working for the reform of parents as 
well as for the salvation of children. So often we hear 
the cry: "Oh! never mind the old ones, they're too 
far gone to do anv good. L,et us try and save the 
'children ! " 

To save the children is blessed work, but it is not 
enough. The adults may yet become the parents of 
more children, and efforts for their reform should be 
persistent in order to give the heredity of good desires 
to future children. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes' re- 
mark about beginning the training of children 200 
years before they are born is so well known as to have 
become proverbial, and never was truer proverb made. 
But one fact in heredity has been too much overlooked, 
and that is, that upward tendency, desire, aspiration 
are transmittable qualities as well as those that are de- 
basing and degrading. So that if parents of unborn 
children can be led to desire to be better men and 
women, their children will probably possess at birth a 
priceless boon that of intense desire to rise above ex- 
istent moral surroundings. 

When we look at the pre-natal conditions of the 
criminal classes, we need not wonder that so many 
criminals are born. Let us suppose a hypothetical case, 
of which we will guarantee to find in Chicago without 
difficulty, a real exemplification for every day in the 
year. 

A rude, coarse, drunken brute is the husband of a 
woman, lowly in station, perhaps, but with all the in- 
stinctive feeling of womanhood. Some night, with 
passions excited by drink and loose companionship, the 
wretch comes home and compels his wife to share his 



144 THE MAKING OF CRIMINALS. 

embraces. She, poor victim, shrinks from his rude 
caresses in horror, and almost sickens as his hot and 
foul breath touches her cheek, but in fear and trembling 
yields her person, for she has been taught (shameful 
teaching) that it is her duty. Filled with horrible 
loathing and disgust for the vile creature to whom she 
is tied, she prays that conception may not take place; 
she uses every means known to her to prevent it, and 
when, after awhile, she finds that all her preventive ef- 
forts were in vain, is there any wonder that she risks 
even her own life to dislodge the embryonic existence 
that is so fearful to her? Sometimes she succeeds, some- 
times she fails, and in either case, it is exceedingly im- 
probable that her brutal husband even gives a 
thought to her condition when his own passions clamor 
for gratification. 

Does it need any mental acumen, or special medi- 
cal and philosophical training to foretell what the fruit 
of such a womb will be? Conceived in drunken lust- 
fulness, subjected to the murderous influences of the 
mother, who with real murder in her heart has sought 
to destroy the, as yet, unformed babe, its whole em- 
bryonic existence bathed in an atmosphere of murder, 
lust and violence, can such a child be .any other than a 
natural-born murderer and sensualist? 

If a boy he most probably becomes a leader in the 
criminal classes; if a girl a queen in the brothel and den 
of thieves. 

Much of the criminality of sensuality manifests 
itself even in the children of Christian parents, and our 
commissioners are the recipients of many sad stories 
from this class of our citizens. Wonder is always ex- 
pressed that good parents should have evil children, and 



THE MAKING OF .CRIMINALS. 145 

many persons put forth these facts as proofs against the 
law of heredity. 

To the superficial observer the criticism may seem 
just, but, when the facts are known, they generally 
only the more fully confirm the law. 

Two things are largely answerable for the exist- 
ence of the evil in such cases. It must be distinctly un- 
derstood that ignorance of a natural law never saves 
the violator from punishment for its infringement. A 
man ignorant that fire burns is just as likely to suffer if 
he plays with a red-hot stove as is the man who knows 
all about it. So in the more hidden processes of nature 
involved in the wide field we cover with the word 
" heredity." Ignorance is no safeguard! 

And now to the two things. 

First, the wrong notion that Christian men and 
women possess as to the Bible's declaring that wives 
shall be subject unto their husbands. This is often 
pleaded by a man as an excuse for the gratification of 
passion at a time undesirable to his wife. The wife 
yields, believing it to be her duty. Offspring born of 
such unison naturally inherit the idea of musculine 
authority, combined with feminine submission. 

This almost as naturally leads to the false, wicked 
and abominable idea held by so many people, good, bad 
and indifferent alike, that to the male the exercise of 
the sexual function when manhood is attained is abso- 
lutely necessary in some way or another. 

And how is it possible that a youth born under 
such mental conditions can be as pure as he should be? 
Or a girl have so strong a feeling of her right to de- 
mand as absolute purity in her lover as he demands of 



146 THE MAKING OF CRIMINALS. 

her? Both are demoralized, and therefore helped 
toward criminality by this false standard. 

The second thing is, that Christian and educated 
people do not observe the natural law after conception 
has taken place. From the moment of the inception of 
a new life the body of the mother should be preserved 
sexually inviolate. Every infringement of this law 
which all the so-called lower animals observe means 
the impressment of lustful desires upon -the mind and 
body of the unborn child, which, sadly too often, bring 
disaster in mature life. 

So much then for heredity. We wish we might 
discuss this grave question further, but our limited 
space forbids. 

Another potent factor in the making of criminals 
is the stand taken by the world in its judgment of the 
morality of man as distinguished from woman. There 
exist two distinct moral codes. One applies to woman, 
the other to man. According to the former, women 
who have fallen into sexual vice are cut off from society. 
They lose caste, and become outcast. According to the 
latter we do not find the same law applied. " Dat ven- 
iam corvis, vexat censura columbas." " He forgives 
the ravens, reviles the doves." The man receives little 
or no condemnation. 

We can give many such cases in Chicago of the 
truth of what we say. The woman is made to bear all 
the burden, whilst the " stronger vessel " escapes all in- 
convenience, except that caused by his own conscience, 
if he have any. 

The effect of this monstrous and unjust law of 
society is to train young men to believe that the un- 



THE MAKING OF CRIMINA! 

licensed exercise of lustful passion is not dangerous for 
them. It teaches them to "sow their wild oats," it of- 
fers a premium to their lustfulness, for it makes them 
more " interesting " to the silly moths of society who 
fly around dangers. 

We are thankful to record that pure men and 
women in this city are making a strong protest against 
this degrading judgment, but the number who dis- 
criminate is fearfully small, compared to what it 
should be. 

Another method bv which many criminals are 
made in Chicago, is the advice given by physicians to 
young men who have fallen into the pernicious habit of 
solitary vice. They are often told that the only cure 
for this fearfully demoralizing habit is to either marry 
or visit the house of prostitution. To marry is often 
impossible, and therefore, following the advice of his 
medical adviser, the young man takes the further step 
into degradation and criminality by entering the snare 
of the harlot. These physicians, and there are many 
such in Chicago, should be strung up to the whipping- 
post and severely scourged, for they well know that 
the cure is worse than the disease, and that, too often, 
it means the retaining of the patient, for he will soon 
have more horrible and loathsome diseases to be treated, 
as the result of following the advice given. 

Of the making of criminals by circulating vile 
books, pictures and advertisements, the display of 
obscene pictures on the walls of saloons, and indeed the 
very existence of the saloon, the licentious exhibitions 
at theaters, etc., we have already spoken. There are 
many other criminal-making appliances at work, as the 
earlier pages of this book show, and others we should 



148 THE MAKING OF CRIMINALS. 

like to discuss, such as gambling-houses, lotteries, etc. 
Whilst writing this chapter a copy of " Traps for the 
Young," by Anthony Comstock, has been placed in our 
hands, which fully presents all phases of this question. 
We most heartily commend the book to all interested. 
But, ere 'this chapter is concluded, we must refer to 
one phase of this important question that few Ameri- 
can writers have the courage to open up, and we con- 
fess it is not without feelings of great temerity that we 
make the assertion, that in the play -ground and sur- 
roundings of the public school, the children of Chicago 
are exposed to a training that is far more dangerous in 
its viciousness than words can adequately express. And, 
whilst we shoulder the responsibility of the following 
statements by well-known indeed, world-known 
writers, we prefer that they should give expression 
to our thought rather than that we ourselves should 
attempt it. One says: 

" For the vast majority of children, the first, and therefore most 
potent, outside influence, is the public school. Here are thrown 
together, for years, with little restriction upon, and less supervision 
over, their intercourse, children of both sexes; the lisping infant 
and the nearly grown man and woman; the refined and the common ; 
the gentle and the brutal; the innocent and the vile; the ignorant and 
the knowing; the sweet, tender, pure, defenseless little souls to 
whom all things are yet pure, who know no guile and suspect no 
evil, and those in whom lust has been prematurely awakened by 
evil knowledge and temptation, and sin has already begun some 
form of spiritual death and bodily vice. 

What is the result? What can we expect ? For what have we 
provided the conditions? What father does not know how often a 
son's first knowledge of himself is gained from impure associates at 
school ? What can he expect as to the quality and influence of such 
knowledge so derived? What mother does not have evidence, in the 
vile words her children use, perhaps ignorantly, that their minds 
and hearts are being filled with foul thoughts; that they are being 



THE MAKING OF CRIMINALS. 149 

made to hear of vice they may not yet understand? It is a marvel 
of our time, and marks a fearful lack of a sense of responsibility 
for results, that tender children, well guarded at home, are turned 
loose in the heterogeneous crowd of the public school, and never an 
effort is made to extirpate or defend them against the evil influences 
that are as rife there as fungi in a swamp." 

General Booth in his "Darkest England" gives 
further expression to this same fearful condition of 
things: 

" And even the schooling, such as it is, at what an expense is it 
often imparted ! The rakings of the human cesspool are brought 
into the school-room and mixed up with your children. Guileless 
little ones, who never heard a foul word and who are not only inno- 
cent, but ignorant, of all the horrors of vice and sin, sit for hours 
side by side with little ones whose parents are habitually drunk, and 
play with others whose idea of merriment are gained from the 
familiar spectacle of the nightly debauch by which their mothers 
arn the family bread. It is good, no doubt, to learn the ABC, 
but it is not so good that in acquiring these indispensable rudiments, 
your children should also acquire the vocabulary of the harlot 
and the corner boy. I speak only of what I know, and of that 
which has been brought home to me as a matter of repeated com- 
plaint by my officers, when I say that the obscenity of the talk of 
many of the children of some of our public schools could hardly 
be outdone in Sodom and Gomorrah. Childish innocence is_ very 
beautiful; but the bloom is soon destroyed, and it is a cruel 
awakening for a mother to discover that her tenderly nurtured boy, 
or htr carefully guarded daughter, has been initiated by a companion 
into the mysteries of abomination that are concealed in the phrase 
a house of ill-fame." 

In concluding this chapter let us be understood as 
-wishing to emphasize the fact that every tolerated or 
glossed over evil, every wrong that exists without 
efforts being made to suppress it, is in itself a help 
towards the making of criminals. 



The Agencies of Reform. 



" Give me the power to labor lor mankind, 

Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak, 
Eyes let me be to groping men and blind, 

A conscience to the base, and to the weak 
Let me be hands and feet; and to the foolish, mind.' r 

Theodore Parker. 

" God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost 
and with power: who went about doing good, and healing 
all that were oppressed; for God was with Him." 

Peter the Apostle. 

TO merely tabulate the various organizations that 
exist in our city for its purification would be 
to fill up several pages. The complete list 
can be had from any directory. There are a few 
societies, however, with which we are personally 
familiar, and of these we wish to speak without giving 
any lengthy account. Our purpose is to arouse a desire 
in the minds of our readers for further information, so 
that these organizations, in the future, may be more 
thoroughly sustained than they have been. 

Every church in the city sees after some of its own 
poor, but the great relief organization is the Relief and 
Aid Society. Its work as set forth in its rules is "to 
aid such of the poor as through sickness and other mis- 
fortune need temporary assistance. The permanently 
dependent are not regarded as proper subjects of relief 
by this Society. 



THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 151 

"In a general way it may be stated that the present 
object of the Society is, first, to assist families, who by 
sickness or want of employment are in temporary need 
of aid; second, to assist widows left with a large num- 
ber of children, or widows who are sickly, whether 
their families be large or small, if they need assistance; 
third, to help old or ailing people who are nearly able 
to support themselves, but occasionally need a little 
temporary aid ; fourth, to help families who are poor 
and have large numbers of children, and also helpless 
old people to support; fifth, to give to worthy poor a 
respectable burial; sixth, to aid the worthy to leave the 
city, which may be necessary for a great variety of 
reasons." 

The number of people relieved by this Society has 
been very great. Its affairs are most ably and satisfac- 
torily managed by the superintendent, Rev. C. G. 
Truesdell. He has been in charge since the work 
began, and as this was the first charity organization of 
Chicago, no man is more competent to deal with the 
grave questions which require consideration than he. 
From Nov. i, 1889, to Nov. i, 1890, the Society ex- 
pended $38,500, and gave relief to families as follows: 

Number receiving aid once, 830; twice, 515; three 
times, 460; four times, 340; five times, 130; six times 
or more, 75, giving a total number of families aided of 
2,350, with 6,015 appropriations. 

Over 13,500 applications were received, but of this 
number 7,550 were disapproved. 

Valuable information as to the work of this Society 
can be gained by a careful perusal of their reports 
which will undoubtedly be furnished on application to 
the superintendent. 



152 THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 

The Home of the Friendless is a most helpful 
institution, working for the relief of friendless women 
and children. It has large and commodious quarters of 
its own in the city, as well as a fruit farm in the country, 
so that effective service can be rendered. 

Of the Free and other Kindergarten Associations, 
too much cannot be said in their praise. The genius of 
Froebel is permeating the lives of thousands of Chicago 
children through the beneficial work of these societies. 
We would that they were multiplied until every child 
of poverty was taken into them and educated in the 
truest sense of the word. 

The various churches have their missions planted 
in all parts of the city. Each and every one of these 
is doing good work, and their number should be mul- 
tiplied. It is needless to enumerate these, as each 
church is doubtless familiar with its own mission and 
can give all needed information. 

There are also private missions, as the Kirkland 
Mission, controlled by a board of prominent citizens; 
the Pacific Garden Mission, conducted by Colonel 
and Mrs. Clarke. All of these are doing grand 
and noble work, and those who conduct them receive 
constant assurance of the blessings they bestow upon 
those who attend. 

We should not forget the three missions of Mr. 
Nurdy and his wife amongst the Italians this is one of 
the noblest of mission works sustained entirely by 
voluntary subscription. 

One of the most promising works in this city is 
that of the Rev. W. D. Smock, who for over two years 
has been engaged in the rescue of fallen women and 
girls. Many have been sent to their homes, some 



THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 153 

placed in positions, and others have been returned to 
triends. A home has been established and the support 
has been entirely voluntary. 

The Women's Christian Temperance Union has 
its headquarters in enthusiasm and inspiration in 
Chicago. To the honest inquirer there can be but one 
opinion as to the wonderful amount of good constantly 
following the efforts of these heroic women. They 
conduct missions, free Kindergartens, free dispensaries, 
newsboys' reading rooms, and many other reform and 
educational agencies, and are a most potent factor in the 
rorces successfully grappling with evils of every kind. 

The various day nurseries are doing good in helping 
relieve mothers, who are compelled to work, of the 
burden of caring for their children. The good to the 
little ones, also, is great, and will tell in future genera- 
tions even more than now. 

The work of the Salvation Army is too well known 
to need general description, but to see that it is doing 
good only needs the exercise of a little observation. 
Under the guidance of its present chief officer, Briga- 
dier Fielding, who has done wonderfully successful 
vork in California, it will be more aggressive in 
Chicago than ever. It is to be hoped that ere long a 
home for the rescue of fallen women will be under- 
taken by the Army, and its " slum " work carried on 
here as in other large cities. 

There are several circles of " King's Daughters," 
largely composed of the daughters of our more wealthy 
citizens, who visit amongst the poor, relieve their dis- 
tress, care for the afflicted, and do it all " In His Name" 
tinder the motto " Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least 
of these ye did it unto me." This work, if thoroughly 



154 THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 

done by these young ladies, would help wonderfully in 
removing the feeling that stirs the heart of so many of 
the poor, viz., that the rich have no thought or care 
about their wretchedness and misery. 

The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian 
Associations do grand work in their own specific lines, 
and the work of the various Hospitals in their depart- 
ment is well known. 

Then there are Waifs'- Missions, a Foundlings' 
Home, a Children's Aid Society, News-boys' Clubs 
and Reading Rooms; the work of the Hull House, 
which is the Chicago "Toynbee Hall"; and on 
the North Side a kind of Working Girls' Club has been 
organized, w r here educational work of every kind is 
carried on for the benefit of this much neglected class. 

The Flower Missions each year bring jov to many 
weary hearts, and the Fresh Air Fund allows new life 
and vigor to be given to those for \vhom it was origin- 
ated. The Humane Society and the Immediate Aid 
Society are both engaged in most helpful and needed 
work, and of these and many others we should like to 
give more extended notice. 

The Industrial Schools have been so thoroughly 
described in the various newspapers that their work is 
made thoroughly familiar to all interested. 

For the reform of drunkards there are the Wash- 
ingtonian Home for men and the Martha Washington 
Home for women, and both do much needed work. 

Grand work is being done in the personal visitation 
by godly men and women at the prisons, hospitals,. 
poorhouse, infirmary and insane asylum. No words 
can estimate the value we attach to work of this charac- 
ter, as our chapter on suggestive remedies will show. 



THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 155 

Chicago has the honor of being the second city in 
the world to try the experiment of police matrons. 
The good these women accomplish in their difficult 
position is not one half known. How much many a 
poor prisoner owes to their womanly kindness? We> 
are under obligation to Mrs. J. B. Hobbes, whose papet 
giving the origin of the police matron work in this city 
was handed to one of our commissioners: 

" It was after repeated interviews with the Mayor arid Chief of 
Police that permission was given to place a matron in the Harrison 
Street Police Station, and then only as an experiment, provided the 
Women's Christian Temperance Union would defray all expenses ; 
which they did for nearly one year, and also provided money for 
food for sick prisoners. So confident were we of ultimate success 
that we at once employed Mrs. S. J. Littell, who entered upon her 
duties as matron in the above named station March 9, 1882, to which 
position she was subsequently appointed by the Mayor. To quote 
from a former report: ' The experiment proved a success, so much 
so, that the officers in the station were very emphatic in their com- 
mendations, while the prisoners were profuse in their expressions of 
gratitude and appreciation for the aid and attention cheerfully given 
by a kind-hearted Christian woman. ' 

She so patiently listened to the tales of woe, and so tenderly 
nursed the sick, that she was frequently called the ' good angel of 
the station.' From the beginning we had indulged the hope that 
the W. C. T. U. might be able to secure sufficient funds to pay the 
matrons as they from time to time might be appointed. Thi , how- 
ever, was proved to be impossible, for very soon the good resulting 
from the matrons' work attracted the attention of other philanthropic 
organizations who urged the appointment of matrons for other police 
stations at once. And it was through the solicitations of the 
W.C. T. U., the Moral Educational Society and Prisoners' Aid Asso- 
ciation, that two additional matrons were appointed by the Mayor 
in January, 1883. The salaries of the three were then to be paid by 
the city. These were followed by two more in February, 1885. 
The city also provided "police matron stars" for all the matrons, 
and have continued to do so as far as appointments were made. By 
this time it became apparent to all that matrons were needed, and 



156 THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 

should be placed in the five principal stations, and at the request of 
the W. C. T. U., the P. A. Ass'n and the Chicago Women's Club, 
five more were appointed May i, 1885, making ten in all on duty, 
two in each of the principal police stations, alternately day and 
night. Those appointed were recommended by a joint committee of 
the W. C. T. U. and P. A. Ass'n. At this time an order was issued 
by the Chief requiring that all females arrested must be placed in 
one of these five stations. The work gave good satisfaction, and 
there were very few changes until 1890, when the city limits were 
extended, and more matrons needed, then eight more were appointed. 
Later on more territory was added, and more were appointed. 
Jan. 15. 1891, still another was added, so they now number 21." 

The Erring Woman's Refuge is, without any 
question, one of the finest homes of its kind in the 
world. Here, as its name implies, girls and women 
may come, or they are committed by some process of 
law, and under firm Christian guidance are led into a 
new life. We wish our readers could enjoy as we have 
done many of the letters written by girls who have been 
started afresh in life's journey from this home, where 
they speak in almost effusive language of the kind help- 
fulness they received when all the rest of the world had 
forsaken them. 

We regret the name of this place. It is a mistake 
to brand any woman as " erring," and we trust that 
some day this part of the title may be changed. 

The Home of the Good Shepherd is a similar 
home under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, 
and doubtless does good and efficient service. 

The Anchorage Mission is for women and girls, 
and is situated in Plymouth Place. Its object is to 
provide a temporary home for needy girls and women, 
especially those who are in distress. Little is known to 
thousands of what this grand Christian home is doing. 
It reaches out and saves the most degraded, and also 



THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 157 

steps in to prevent the fall of others. Women and 
girls come here voluntarily, and they leave when they 
choose. It is not a hospital, but a place where girls 
may gain new inspiration which will enable them to go 
out and fight the battle of life with success. 

A midnight mission has also been commenced on 
South Clark St. It needs more workers, consecrated 
Christian men and women, who will go out during the 
hours before midnight and urge the lost and abandoned 
to endeavor to lead a new life. At present it is handi- 
capped for want of workers, and only those whose 
hearts are full of desire to work for the good of their 
fallen sisters can ever accomplish anything in such 
work. 

Another association that is doing good service is 
the Bureau of Justice. It is organized in the interest of 
poor people who cannot afford themselves to enter into 
litigation against those who wish to defraud them. Of 
cases taken into court the bureau won 342 and lost 33. 
There were 285 suits for wages prosecuted. All the 
claims were small, averaging under $15. The Presi- 
dent remarks in this connection: " What a commentary 
on the injustice of mankind that in an age of high 
civilization the bureau should be compelled to prosecute 
285 men and women of property and standing in a 
great city to recover the paltry aggregate of $4,000 in 
behalf of poor persons dependent upon their daily labor 
to procure bread for their families." 

To the work of the Protective Agency for Women 
and Children we have already referred. It has been 
rendering effective service, and its hands should be 
abundantly strengthened. 

It will be instructive for our readers to carefully 



158 THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 

and thoroughly consider some points in the reports of 
this agency for the last four years: 

In 1887 they investigated 12 cases of criminal 
assault or attempted criminal assault. In three cases, 
five men were sentenced to the penitentiary for terms 
ranging from one to five years each. In two cases, the 
men were held to Grand Jury and discharged; the 
balance were dismissed in the Justice Court, or they 
evaded arrest by leaving the city. 

They had also six cases of abduction for immoral 
purposes, three were under the guise of employment, 
three were direct. In all the cases but one, the girls 
were rescued, and either sent home or respectable em- 
ployment obtained for them. 

. The following year they reported: 

Twenty cases of seduction and bastardy. As the former is not 
considered even a misdemeanor in this state, the only ground for 
action is the latter in this class of cases. We have brought seven 
suits, two of which were settled by marriage, three by payment of 
$200 in two cases and $500 in one, the other two were dismissed for 
want of prosecution. The remainder were dismissed for want of 
evidence, defendants had left town, or parties were unworthy, and 
not in need of help. 

Thirteen were complaints of criminal assault. Five cases were 
brought to trial and resulted in convictions in four and dismissal in 
one. Four were dismissed for lack of evidence, and four were un- 
worthy. 

Six were abductions for immoral purposes. Two were brought 
to trial, resulting in one conviction for one year and one dismissal. 
The others were unworthy, or failed for want of evidence. 

The People vs. Mrs. Annie Hermann, Charles Busse and William 
Sigmund, was a conspiracy to seduce two girls aged respectively 
sixteen and eighteen years. This was a long, hard fought case, re- 
sulting in a conviction with a penalty of five years each for the first 
two defendants, and four years for Sigmund. While on trial for this 
particular offense it transpired that these defendants 'had long been 
perpetrating similar crimes. 



THE AGENCIES OF KF.FORM. 159 

In 1889 the Society's report refers to: 

Twenty-three complaints of bastardy. 

Fourteen complaints were of criminal assault , nine of these 
Avere prosecuted in Justice Court. On trial one man has been sent 
to the penitentiary, one boy to the bridewell, one man fined $100. 
In three cases the evidence was not conclusive, in one we declined 
to interfere for good cause, and in two the girls were over fourteen 
years of age. 

Eight cases of seduction; nothing could be done. 

Three complaints of abduction; evidence not strong enough to 
warrant any action. 

In 1890 the Society's report contained the follow- 
ing: 

Thirty-four were cases of bastardy; eleven were held to the 
criminal court, eleven nothing could be done, either because the 
man could not be found, the case was unworthy or impossible of 
proof; two were settled by marriage, four (or money consideration, 
ani six were advised. 

Twelve were complaints of criminal assault: four were prose- 
cuted in justice and criminal courts, and resulted in convictions and 
sentences to the penitentiary; these were all assaults upon children; 
two were unworthy, in four evidence was insufficient, and two com- 
plaints by women in which th^ cases were tried in justice court but 
grand juries failed to find indictments. 

Five were cases of abduction: three were of young girls for im- 
moral purposes, prosecutions in every case tailed because the accused 
succeeded in getting complaining witnesses out of the way. Our ex- 
perience in these cases has shown us that we cannot succeed unless 
we have the moral backing of the justice of the peace before whom 
the case is tried. Two were cases of children by parents. 

Since the above was written the Chicago papers 
contained the following item: 

Springfield, III , May 6. The bill of the Woman's Protective 
Association of Chicago, introduced by Mr. O'Donnell, amending the 
law to prevent the prostitution of females, was read the third time 
and passed by the house this morning. 

By this bill any keeper of an assignation house who shall permit 
any unurw^hd female under the age of 1 8 to stop or room in such a 



I6O THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 

house, shall be imprisoned in the county jail not less thaa six nor 
more than eighteen months. Proof that such person was stopping or 
rooming in such a house at the time charged shall be prima facie 
evidence that she was there by permission of the keeper. 

This is a step in the right direction, and should be 
vigorously followed up until all these abominable insti- 
tutions are " worried " out of existence. 

In all reformatory work for " fallen women " we 
are constantly met with the cry " nothing can be done." 
We unhesitatingly brand this statement as an infamous 
libel upon womanhood, and when uttered by a professing 
Christian, as a denial of the Heavenly Father's forgiv- 
ing and uplifting power. 

Here are a very few of many cases we might give 
of women reclaimed, and now living, as far as any 
person can tell, pure, good, noble lives. 

Mrs. , when seen in one of the houses in " The 

Black Hole," was asked if she were satisfied with her 
life, replied, that she could never be satisfied, but was 
there through necessity, her husband had left her, 
she had a little girl she was starving and almost des- 
perate no Christian would ever open her door to an 
outcast in distress ; these the houses of prostitution 
were the only places that had open doors for such as 
she, and indulged in a general tirade against the worlci 
in general and Christians in particular. 

"But! my dear girl!" said the commissioner, "I 
am assured there are many places that would be open 
to you if you wanted to reform; but we will not argue 
I can tell you of one at least, to which I will take you 
no-w if you will go, where the doors are wide open and 
where loving friends will care for you until another 
place can be found where you can earn your own live- 
lihood ! " 



THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. l6l 

Tears began to flow down the poor woman's 
cheeks her heart was evidently touched, and the com- 
missioner, learning it was her birthday, redoubled the 
pleading, until finally she consented to go. She felt 
that she could never be forgiven, but God in his mercy 
assured her of pardon, now that she was beginning to 
live a true life, and our chief commissioner saw her only 
a few days ago and is assured that her life is right. 

Another commissioner sends in the following: 

I write on Monday, April 6th. Last night a 
woman was met on the streets by one of our commis- 
sioners, about eleven o'clock, and~in response to kindly 
inquiries, said she was. left alone, her husband had run 
off with another woman ; she had no place to go to, no 
money, was so hoarse with sore throat that she could 
scarcely speak, nobody cared for her, and she was 
" g m g to the devil as fast as she could." She was 
urged to come into the midnight mission, and was led 
to promise t& renounce her life of sin and shame. She 
is now being cared for, and work will no doubt be 
found when she is capable of performing it. 

Later, May 4th. This girl has given most clear 
proof of amended life and heart, and is now engaged 
in this city in honorable employment. 

Another woman, who had been leading an evil life 
for some time, was found in a sick state by our commis- 
sioners. She was sent to one of the hospitals, where, 
with the utmost gratitude, of heartj^she spoke of her 
" rescuer" as the only earthly friend she had. That her 
heart was " reformed " there can be no question. While 
this chapter was in progress of writing, this poor woman 
died at the County Infirmary, and was there buried, 



1 62 THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 

after having given the clearest evidence of her restful- 
ness in the love of the Heavenly Father. 

One of our commissioners found a girl in one of 
the houses who was degraded beyond the power of 
words to describe. Her heart was touched, however, 
by the affectionate pleadings of the lady visitor, and she 
was induced to leave the house. For some months a 
home was found for her in one of the suburban villages, 
but at length the people with whom she lived began to 
complain of her inefficiency and general incompetency 
for the simple work required. She was accordingly 
sent as a last resort to the Erring Woman's Refuge, 
and there remained a little over two years. During 
that period she was led to become an earnest, sincere 
Christian, and the managers of the Refuge, desirous to 
see her work her own way in the world, at length sent 
her out to canvass with a book. Whilst engaged in 
this work she met a man in good position, who fell 
deeply in love with her. In due time he proposed and 
was accepted, but not before the girl had told him the 
whole of her past life. With the bravery of true love 
he replied, after the sad recital had ended, " I do not 
love the girl that was, but the girl that is. Let the 
dead past bury its dead I shall marry you!" 

They were married, and are to-day living as 
happily as can be, both working members in one of the 
most prominent churches in the city, another proof 
that fallen women may be and are rescued, do become 
good wives and mothers, and helpful members of 
society. 

If we accept the idea of the fatherhood of God, it 
must be that he will receive back into His loving arms 
any of His erring children who turn to Him, and if He 



THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 163 

will receive them, surely we should do all we possibly 
can to give help to their weary feet as they seek to 
journey homeward. 

The Rev. W. D. Smock, superintendent of the 
midnight mission, gives the following as expressions 
uttered by those amongst whom he has labored : 

" Won't you take me away from here? '- Living with a man 
not far husband. 

" Does God care for me? Does He? '' At the Bridewell. 

" Oh, I suffer so much. If I ever get out of this I will be a 
good girl." At the Poor House, ruined by a life of shame. 

" No, I won't go to, the Mission! No one cares for me. Hus- 
band left me and took my little boy from me. I am homeless and 
without money, and no place to go to. God does not care for one 
like me." One taken from the streets by the Workers. 

" Never can thank you enough for taking me to your home from 
the Hospital." 

' ' Would go home if I thought father and mother would let me 
come.' ' Housekeeper in a Sporting House. 

" Just as well stay in this house of prostitution and be known 
as a bad woman, as stand behind a counter all week for $5.00, and 
then go on the street two or three nights to piece out the miserable 
pittance of a salary." Formerly a Clerk. 

There is one feature of much of the relief work 
carried on by either public or private charity, and that 
is, there is too much red tape about it. This poor 
woman can't be kept in the poor house, she must go to 
some other place, but where, nobody knows; and she, 
poor wretch, mind and body sick and sore with pain, 
disease, misery, sin, knows not how to pull the ropes, 
and as one gentleman said to us only yesterday, " So 
long is the journey of the poverty and sin-stricken soul 
to the place of relief that death often meets it on the 
way." And this is true. Every charity organization 
should be an Immediate Relief Society. Relegate red 



1 64 THE AGENCIES OF REFORM. 

tape to where it belongs the Bureau of Circumlocu- 
tion of Little Dorrit days, and let us have some method 
whereby our poor and distressed may be relieved im- 
mediately and kindly. 

The public press has over and over again spoken 
fearlessly and kindly for the needy on this subject, and 
we trust their words are having effect, and that soon 
every society will be in such a condition as to allow its 
officers at any time to give immediate help, until the 
society to whom the case really belongs can be called to 
attend to it. 



A Word to Professing 
Christians. 



" All things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you, do ye even so to them : for this is the law and the 
prophets. ' ' The Golden Rule of Christ. 

THIS chapter was written by a Christian man 
after reading the foregoing pages. In re- 
sponse to our request he explained his motive 
as follows: Professing Christians stand upon a different 
platform from that occupied by non-professors. The 
former declare to the world that they accept Jesus 
Christ as their teacher, and the New Testament as 
their divinely inspired guide. Now by these standards 
I wish to show them exactly how men of the world 
regard their conduct. Excuse me if I write plainly. 

We now leave the remainder of the chapter to our 
friend. 

Let me premise that in all I here say I am not 
finding fault with those people in the churches who are 
honestly doing what they can to help and benefit others 
whether by money, visitation, food or good-will. 
These remarks are onl/y for those professing Christians, 
whose Christianity goes no further than profession and 
their little round of church duties, which with them 
produce no fruit for the good of others. I have read 
your chapters on Poverty, the Saloon Evil, and thos 



1 66 TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 

which follow, and am personally cognizant of much 
you describe.. Do you wonder if in the face of all these 
facts that unbelievers often contend that much 
of our so called Christianity is sheer, pure, unadulter- 
ated humbug? George MacDonald once said the best 
way to show our love to God, our Father, was by being 
kind unto some of his other children; and yet too many 
of us, who are named by the name of Christ the man 
of sorrows, acquainted with grief, who went about 
doing good, seeking the lost, healing the sick, relieving 
the distressed, and comforting the sorrowing ?ue, his 
professed followers, shun hearing of the misery and 
sorrows of our brethren and sisters. 

"Oh! don't tell me such terrible things! I don't 
want to hear them ! I can't sleep if you tell me of such 
horrors! I lay awake and think about them I dream 
about them and then in the morning I have such a 
fearful headache." 

These are some of the responses that are called 
forth by our eftarts to arouse Christian men and women 
to their duty. 

Yet! dear friend! what are your one or two paltry 
headaches or heartaches in the midst of your luxury and 
plenty for body and mind, compared with the constant 
headaches and heartaches of these poor, neglected ones 
who are the Lord's children as much as you; nay, they 
may be more worthy than you; they may be honoring^ 
and glorifying God in their distress far more abundantly 
than you in your luxury. 

Can you give me any reason from the Bible, or 
anywhere else, why you should be so especially favored, 
and these left so desolate and forlorn? Are you indeed 
so much better than they ? So much more deserving? 



TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. l6/ 

Is it a proof of God's especial regard that you are thus 
circumstanced? I am free to confess not only my doubt 
that it is so, but oftentimes my positive assurance that 
it is not so for now, as in David's time, it is perfectly 
true that the wicked are often seen in great power and 
spreading themselves as the green bay tree. 

Christ Himself has laid down the law as to what 
constitutes his discipleship. " If any man will come 
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross 
daily and follow me." Is it following Christ to do 
exactly the opposite to that which He did when upon 
the earth ? His ear was ever open to the wail of sorrow ; 
He never repelled with the cry, " Such horrible things 
keep me awake ! " He went to the sufferer when called, 
not " Oh dear, I can't go there, such awful sights take 
all my pleasure away!" In Christ's day the expression 
of his true disciple was, "Here am I! Send me!" 
But this is now changed to, " Here's my check! Send 
some one else!" and in many cases, " Don't bother me! 
It's none of my business." To such as these latter let 
me commend the following lines: 

NONE OF OUR BUSINESS. 

[A little girl was heard to finish her evening prayer with these words: 
" And I saw a poor little girl on the street to-day, cold and barefooted; but it's 
none of oar business, is it God ?""] 

" None of our business !" wandering and sinful, 
All through the streets of the city they go, 

Hungry and homeless in the wild weather 
" None of our business !" Dare we say so? 

" None of our business !" Children's wan faces, 
Haggard and old with their suffering and sin; 

Hold fast your darling-; on tender, warm bosoms; 
Sorrow without, but the home-light within. 



TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 

i 

What does it matter that some other woman 
Some common mother in bitter despair, 

Wails in a garret, or s ; ts in a cellar, 

Too broken-hearted for weeping or prayer? 

" None of our business !" Sinful and fallen, 
How they may jostle us close on the street! 

Hold back your garment ! Scorn? They are used to it ; 
Pass on the other side, lest you should meet. 

" None of our business !" On, then, the music ; 

On with the feasting, though hearts break forlorn ; 
Somebody's hungry, somebody's freezing, 

Somebody's soul will be lost ere the morn. 

Somebody's dying, (on with the dancing!) 
One for earth's pottage is selling her soul ; 

One for a bauble has bartered his birthright, 
Selling his all for a pitiful dole. 

Ah, but One goeth abroad on the mountains, 
Over lone deserts with burning deep sands! 

Seeking the lost ones, (it is His business !) 

Bruised though His feet are, and torn though His hands. 

Thorn-crowned His head and His soul sorrow-stricken, 
(Saving men's souls at such infinite cost), 

Broken His heart for the grief of the nations! 
It is His business saving the lost! 

Ah! men and women of the Christian churches, I 
m sick of such shoddy Christianity I am disgusted 
with a Christianity that knows not Christ and His 
methods. Shame on you, those of you, who do not 
His will in this regard you are of the race of Scribes 
and Pharisees not one whit better who lick the out- 
side of the platter, and who within are whited sepul- 
chers. 

Do you mean to tell me that if the Christian men 
and women of this city were, themselves, unaided and 



TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS, Y-.\ 

alone, without any help from the city officials, or ar.y 
one else, determined that they would themselves 
ameliorate the condition of these, God's poor for all, 
all! are His that three months would elapse beforo 
there would be such a change as would make Chicago 
a heaven to these poor wretches, after the hell it ha? 
been and now is to them? 

You pay your pastors large salaries, and for wha^ 
Here is one who receives $3,000, another $4,000. 
another $5,000, another $6,000, and there are more 
than one who receive $8,000 per year. Do you demand 
of them that they follow the example of the meek and 
lowly Jesus? No! No! You expect them to spend 
some of their time calling upon you! They must 
occupy exhaustive hours of study in preparing sweet 
platitudes for you. They must read all the current 
literature of the day to charm your intellectual palates! 
The sermon must be a finished production, whatever 
else is neglected. 

Now! don't tell me that this is ranting. Look 
squarely at the facts! Do you honestly like your 
preachers to declare the truth to you ? Do you want 
them to preach the gospel as Christ lived and preached 
itf Christ who had not where to lay his head Christ 
who was the friend of publicans and sinners? Christ 
who sat calmly whilst the poor prostitute bathed His 
feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair? 
Why, if your pastor were to go alone, trusting to his 
innocency of heart, and purity of intention, to visit 
some of these poor wretches, nine-tenths of you would, 
at once, begin to fling mud at him. 

If he were to dare to openly speak of the sins you 
commit, some of you would at once leave the church; 



I7O TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 

others would probably demand that he resign; a very 
few would uphold him in his course. 

If he were to tell you your plain duty in regard to 
the poor drunkards, prostitutes, waifs and thieves, he 
would never survive the storm of wrath and indigna- 
tion some of you would visit upon him. 

After listening to a sermon you go away, and say 
one to another, " How fine ! What brilliant thoughts! 
What sparkling genius! What delightful rhetoric!" 
instead of saying, " I am moved to a more helpful life! 
I have been too selfish! I have done too little for 
others! I will henceforth be more like Christ!" Alas! 
there is too much easy preaching^ and too little living 
the real Christ life. 

" No! No! we must keep up the "social standing" 
of our church, and we much prefer that these people do 
not come near us lest we be polluted by them." 

Poor, weak Christians, how I pity you! If your 
Christianity is of such a weak, milk-and-water charac- 
ter that it is afraid of the vice that comes to your 
churches to seek for good, it is not worth much. 

You are sadly degenerate from the times of the 
martyrs those who would dare anything, all things, 
for Christ. For here are you, daren't risk your social 
standing your position in society, to help save these 
poor souls, who are God's children just as much as you, 
and for whom if what you say you believe, be true 
Christ died. 

Be men ! be women ! do your duty ! Lay the axe 
to the root of this tree of evil. There is but one 
remedy, and that is to do away with your own selfish- 
ness. For centuries the sages and philosophers and 
statesmen have aimed to bring about the ideal republic. 



TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 171 

It has not yet come, and it never will UNLESS practi- 
cal Christianity brings it. That is the only remedy for 
the evil and misery. Plato, and Socrates, and Solon, 
and Pericles, and Cassar, and Bacon, and Sir Thomas 
Moore, and Bulwer, and Bebel, and Bellamy, and all 
the rest, may write of the Ideal State, the Republic of 
the Future, and their ideas are " Utopian " indeed. 
The practical remedy is the one which such reformers( ? ) 
deem the most Utopian of all that you by your actions, 
if not by your words, deem so utterly " impracticable" - 
and that remedy is the simple living by Christian people 
of the law of love. " Doing unto others that which 
we would have them do unto us;" exemplifying the 
grand words of Paul set forth in i Cor., 13 chapter. 

Let me illustrate: You, Christian, with wealth, 
luxury, position, education, culture, refinement, place 

yourself in the place of Mrs. , mentioned on 

page 25, and let her take your place. 

Now, how would you have her do to you in such 
circumstances? 

May I tell you what I think nay, what I am 
sure YOU would say, if your positions were reversed 
to-day! This is what you would say: " Why has God 
blessed her so much more than He has blessed me. I 
have tried to do His will I do seek to be His, and yet 
she is so blessed and I am so down-trodden. Now, if 
the love of God dwells in her, surely she will see my 
need and give to me some of her wealth. She spends 
$50 for an afternoon tea; $100 for a new party gown. 
Why half of that would be such a help to me, and she 
OUGHT to give it to me! Then, toe, I have no friends, 
no loving sympathy from anyone, and a few words. 
from a true, loving heart would make my life so bright. 



172 TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 

A hearty, sympathetic friendship would be such a com- 
fort to me." 

Yes! and I think in the main you would be right. 
She ought to give, and therefore you OUGHT now to 
give to her. " To him that knoweth to do good, and 
doeth it not, to him is it sin! " 

This is the remedy, and the only remedy for 
poverty and vice. It is God's plan a plan that the 
majority of Christians have never tested. You can test 
its efficacy and can begin at once. No need to wait for 
your neighbor to do his duty ere you do yours. Go, 
with the pure love of Christ in your heart, and beaming 
in your eyes, and radiant upon your face, to these, your 
brothers and sisters, and AS their sister or brother, 
minister to their needs. Not send your servant with a 
little broth or a pot of jelly! That is cold-hearted 
cruelty ! what people in misery want is love, as well as 
broth and jam. Go and love them with ChrisPs love. 
"As /have loved you, even so love ye one another." 
Do you wonder at Ingersollism running rampant in the 
minds of some thinkers, who, looking atyour exempli- 
fication of Christianity, say it is all humbug and hypo- 
crisy. I don't, and neither will you, if you will measure 
your life by the standard laid down for you by Christ. 

And now a few words to the ministers. What I 
have written to the pew applies equally to you. Instead 
of wasting time and strength arguing about dogmas 
and doctrines, upon which you never can agree, expend 
the strength and time in " going about doing good." 
Take comfort to the suffering and distressed, instead of 
locking yourselves up in your studies. 

Listen to what one of your number, the Rev. 
David Swing, says to and of you: 



TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 173 

" Whatever may be the number and the value of religious doc- 
trines, this age makes use of very few, and these are such as tend to 
make men better. Christianity is now a great reform, and its clergy- 
men must needs be reformers. They must avoid fanaticism, but 
there is nothing in the shape of a real human betterment they must 
not attempt to establish. If the pulpit could raise the wages of the 
sewing woman and lower her house rent, and the price of her coal 
and bread, it should do so. Helpfulness is a dogma which over- 
shadows the questions which once engaged Abelard and Jonathan 
Edwards. As was natural in a world full of development, sympathy 
for a soul in danger of hell has widened so as to include the person 
in danger of hunger and cold.' 1 

It is a good thing, Prof. Swing, to preach the 
gospel of helpfulness, and urge the people to their duty ; 
but I respectfully suggest that both an easier and a 
letter way is so to hold up Christ not as an example, 
but as our real life, that the people will become intoxi- 
cated with His love ; then they will repeat the story, and 
sin will be expelled by the power of this new and 
mightier affection. 

Again I quote from Prof. Swing: 

" What most deeply injures the pulpit of our day is the exces- 
sive growth of all material things houses, furniture, money and all 
display a palace in the foreground, with a small half-doubted God 
far off in the rear. The clergyman's dinner is richer than his 
worship. We are all so near alike in this humiliating defect that we 

are interested in keeping silence Within the walls of all 

the Christian denominations there is abundant room for the outpour- 
ing of the religious heart. It is well, therefore, for the heart to have 
something to pour out." 

Live Christ's life, go about doing good, help the 
sick, comfort the suffering and distressed, preach his 
gospel of helpfulness to your people, urge them to their 
duty, expose their sins of pride and selfishness fearlessly, 
and do your whole duty even though you be. cast into 
a lion's den like Daniel, a fiery furnace like Shadrach, 



174 TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 

Meshach and Abednego, a prison like Paul, or suffer a 
martyrdom like thousands of better men who have 
lived before you. 

And with regard to the grosser vices, I commend 
to you, with my own emendations and additions, the 
words of the Rev. M. W. Pressley, D. D., of Philadel- 
phia. He says, speaking to ministers of the gospel: 

" I trust that we shall not be ashamed to have our 
ministerial robes corrupted, if it require it, with contact 
with suffering, sinful, sinning humanity." 

Now! look at this statement. The learned doctor 
says " if it require it." The world is going to the devil 
at break-neck speed, and yet he hopes the ministers of 
the Christ who did not fear to "corrupt His 
robes " by contact with sinning humanity will not be 
ashamed to do likewise! When will doctors of divinity 
learn that it is CHRIST who is to be followed and not 
the petty dogmas and ideas of men ? 

Again he says: 

" I believe if our religion could be soiled by an 
honest contact with these living, awful, damning reali- 
ties that we have to face in our cities, it would be far 
better for us." 

Let me ask, "Can religion be soiled?" I say a 
religion that does not come into contact with these 
" living, awful, damning realities " is a humbug and a 
sham of the first water, a vile travesty upon the Christ 
whose- name is polluted by being used to designate such 
a system. Religion can never be soiled. True fol- 
lowers of Christ will never have a fear of being soiled. 
His message was purely and simply to those and for 
those who are soiled, and any man, any woman, who 
professes to be His ambassador in these later days who 



TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 175 

dares to talk about being " soiled " in delivering His 
message, is a craven and a traitor, and should leave the 
ranks. 

The Doctor continues: 

" I do believe that if we do not very soon meet 
and master this gigantic evil, we shall see the cancer 
developing upon the very body of Christ." 

Yes, Doctor! we who look do already see it 
developing, and we pray you and all other true hearted 
ministers to speak out boldly, and live most positively 
the life that will kill such corrupting evils. 

In conclusion, let me urge you to quit preach- 
ing about theological dogmas, splitting hail's that are 
of no earthly or heavenly use when split, and go to 
work earnestly, leading men to apply Christ's life to 
themselves to-day and yourselves setting the example 
to your people. 

Then, and then only, shall you be truly Christ-like 
pastors, and your people become truly Christ-like 
people. God hasten the day when this may come. 

I have written plainly, and of course some of you 
will say offensively. The question with me is not, 
whether I have offended you; that I care little about ; 
but, have I spoken the truth in love, have I showed you 
your duty in the face of these awful and stern facts of 
suffering, sorrow and sin ? 

I kno-vo that of which I speak, when I say that 
pure and undefiled Christianity is the only remedy for 
the woe of the world. Tom Moore wrote aright 
spoke truthfully when his heart prompted that hymn 
you doubtless often sing, 

" Earth hath no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal." 

The history of all reform work; the experience of 



1 76 TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS. 

the only successful workers, such as John Howard, 
Granville Sharp, Elizabeth Fry.. Margaret Prior > 
Florence Nightingale, Sister Dora, Miss Robinson, 
Mrs. Garnaut, with our own Moody, and many others 
unknown to fame, but earnestly doing the work of the 
Master, all demonstrate that it is the personal, loving 
contact of hearts full of divine sympathy and affection 
that is to uplift the masses, and nothing else -will. 
Christ is heaven brought to earth, and when the earth 
knows Christ, sin and sorrow will cease, and never 
until then. 



Suggestive Remedies. 



"The two most remarkable cities in the world are 
Rome and Chicago.' ' Professor Park of Ando-ver. 

" Cities are moral battlegrounds." Dr. Dorchester. 

" Except the Lord keep the city; the watchman waketh 

but in vain." The Hebrew Scriptures. 

" In our desire to ameliorate the evil condition of men, 
show us the loftiest peak to which the human mind and 
heart can soar. There, on that peak we take our stand 
to-day, and gaze upward and onward to a still loftier emi- 
nence, upon which we may take our stand to-morrow." 

Anonymous. 

AS THE writer of the preceding chapter has said, 
so do we believe, there is but one remedy for all 
the suffering and vice of Chicago, and indeed of 
the world. Whatever creed or no creed men may have, the 
remedy consists in living the life oi.unselfish love. The 
Golden Rule covers it all. We may "Look Backward " 
and " Look Forward," and look all around, and our 
looking will be but effort expended in vain. The look- 
ing must be Upward. Not only for ourselves but for 
others. Our lives must be practical for others, as well 
as for ourselves. The world is cursed by selfishness; 
it must be saved by Christ, who is the embodiment of 
self-sacrifice. All religions that have had any power 
are based on this. Buddha Gautama would have lived 
and taught in vain without this as his keynote. Even 



1/8 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

Confucianism means a burying of selfhood in reverent 
worship of ancestry Mahomedamisn meant a sinking 
of self now, death even now, in order to make others 
followers of the prophet. Mormonism demands self- 
abnegation, obedience to leaders. And we may theorize 
about reform all we wish, and theorize forever, we 
believe that no other reforming of life and character 
can come except through that spirit of loving helpful- 
ness, which the Christian calls the spirit of Christ. We 
do not care by what name it is known! We do not 
care who manifests it! That man, that woman, who 
from love to humanity made "in the image of God," 
sinks self in a practical uplifting of others, whether 
in body, mind or soul, is the true reformer, the true 
philanthropist, and the true child of the Heavenly 
Father. 

And all we have to suggest will but be amplifica- 
tions of this principle, or what seem to us to be practi- 
cal applications of it in multifarious and diverse ways. 

In conjunction with this spirit of helpfulness, there 
should likewise be a corresponding sternness in dealing 
with those whose lives are devoted to a selfish preying- 
upon their weaker neighbors. This spirit of punish- 
ment is not revengeful, but is a protective measure for 
those who need the protection of others, and is also in- 
tended to act as a deterrent to those who are guilty. 

There is one remedy which many leading men in 
the scientific world believe to be the only practicable 
solution of one part of the problem, although few are 
brave and bold enough to openly advocate it. 

The law of the survival of the fittest as it operates 
in nature uninterfered with by man invariably drives 
the weakest to the wall. He who has not strength to 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. I'/f) 

win a place for himself in the struggle for existence, 
and there maintain it, is remorselessly thrust aside, and 
his life trampled out. 

Amongst human beings, the humanitarian feeling 
and sentiment combats this doctrine of the survival of 
the fittest, and some amongst the strong seek to help 
the weak and protect them in the fierce struggle for 
life Now what is the result? says our scientist, and 
we would especially caution the reader that we are here 
giving the scientist's position, and not our own. 

The result is, says he, that the weak are helped to 
the general deterioration of the race. 

For instance: When we allow our feelings of 
humanity to stand in the way of the speedy death of 
the hopelessly diseased and the habitually criminal, we 
give to these classes the opportunity they are never slow 
to avail themselves of, viz., to propagate their kind, and 
more diseased and criminal are thrust into the conflict. 
We take these vitiated children, cherish and protect 
them, forgetful of the fact that when their turn 
comes, they will become the progenitors of the criminal 
and diseased classes of the future. Such people should 
be prevented by law from becoming parents, they 
should be rendered physically incapable of generating, 
and thus the weaker and the more vicious types would 
speedily die out. 

This the theory of emasculation is that offered 
by some scientists as the great cure all and preventative. 

But how would it work? How about the diseased 
and vicious amongst the rich? Their riches would 
enable them to overcome the law wealth can ever find 
means for the gratification of all appetites, and the 
sexual appetite, being the strongest and most powerful 



l8o SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

of all, would resist, with all the strength and vigor of 
which it was capable, any restraint of its exercise. 

No! no! the theory could never be put into prac- 
tice. The diseased and the poor and the criminal are 
with us, and will remain with us, until we lift them 
from their disease, their poverty and their criminality. 
The instinct of sympathy is one of the differentiations 
of the higher animal species from the lower; for, whilst 
we do not forget that in all anatomical and physiologi- 
cal features man is exactly the same as all other mam- 
malia, we do recognize that he is human as distin- 
guished from the brute. And the instinct of sympathy 
is one of the broad lines of demarkation existent 
between the brute and the man. We call it an instinct, 
whether this be the scientific term or not. It must be 
confessed that the average child in its very earliest 
years shows itself possessed of this sentimental quality, 
and it is only by years of hard battling in the world 
that the fierce race for position and wealth dulls the 
fine edge of this sympathetic feeling. But there are 
those who tenderly cultivate this feeling as one of the 
highest of human possessions, and so long as man pos- 
sesses sympathy it will be impossible for him to coolly 
stand by and see the ruthless law of the survival of the 
fittest driving the weaker to the wall. 

ON THE MAKING OF CRIMINALS. 

In our treatment of criminals much might be done 
to improve the existent state of affairs. How much 
we might learn even from the Buddhist who prayed: 
" I pray thee to have pity on the vicious thou hast 
already had pity on the virtuous by making them so." 
Socrates taught a lesson that the people of Chicago 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. l8l 

would do well to learn, when he said: "It is strange 
that you should not be angry when you meet a man 
with an ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when 
you encounter one with an ill-conditioned soul." 

Nothing better and more practical that we know 
of has been uttered on this subject than by Robert G. 
Ingersoll in his " Crimes against Criminals," and from 
this speech we extract the following: "Who ever is 
degraded by society becomes its enemy. The seeds of 
malice are sown in his heart, and to the day of his death 
he will hate the hands that sowed the seeds. 
A punishment that degrades the punished wil! degrade 
the man who inflicts the punishment, and will degrade 
the government that procures the infliction. The 
whipping-post pollutes, not only the whipped, but the 
whipper, and not only the whipper but the community 
at large. Wherever its shadow falls it degrades." . . . 

" The convict is the pavement on which those who 
watch him walk. He remains for the time of his 
sentence, and when that expires he goes forth a branded 
man. He is given money enough to pay his fare back 
to the place from whence he came 

"What is the condition of this man? Can he get 
employment? Not if he honestly states who he is and 
where he has been. The first thing he does is to deny 
his personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by 
telling falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good 
conduct. The average man does not wish to employ 
an ex-convict, because the average man has no confi- 
dence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. He 
believes that the convict who comes out is worse than 
the convict who went in. He knows that in the peni- 
tentiary the heart of this man has been hardened that 



1 82 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual humili- 
ation that he has been treated like a ferocious beast; 
and so he believes that this ex-convict has in his heart 
hatred for societv, that he feels he has been degraded 
and robbed. Under these circumstances, what avenue 
is open to the ex-convict? If he changes his name, 
there will be some detective, some officer of the law, 
some meddlesome wretch, who will betray his secret. 
He is then discharged. He seeks employment again, 
and he must seek it by again telling what is not true. 
He is again detected, and again discharged. And 
finally he becomes convinced that he cannot live as an 
honest man. He naturally drifts back into the society 
of those who have had a little experience; and the 
result is that in a little while he again stands in the 
dock, charged with the commission of another crime. 
Again he is sent to the penitentiary and this is the 
end. He feels that his day is done, that the future has 
only degradation for him." 

The convict should feel the protecting power cf 
the state. He should be given a " chance " when 
discharged. Some of his prison earnings should be 
given to him to begin life anew. 

" This would give him food and raiment, enable 
him to go to some other state or country where he 
could redeem himself. If this were done, thousands of 
convicts would feel under immense obligation to the 
government. They would think of the penitentiary as 
the place in which they were saved in which they 
weie redeemed and they would feel that the verdict 
of guilty rescued them from the abyss of crime. 
Under these circumstances, the law would appear 
beneficent, and the heart of the poor convict, instead of 



SUGGESHVK REMEDIES. 183 

being filled with malice, would overflow with gratitude. 
He would see the propriety of the course pursued by 
the government. He would recognize and feel and ex- 
perience the benefits of this course, and the result would 
be good, not only to him, but to the nation as well." 

Hardened criminals should be kindly treated, but 
prevented from propagating their kind. Should not 
the death penalty be abolished, for many and divers 
reasons ? 

Prisoners treated in this way would be far more 
likely to reform, and thus one of the greatest difficnlties 
f city life would be materially lessened. 

Another suggestion as to the treatment of the 
Insane. There should be a society organized by good, 
kindly men and women for the protection of the 
insane. There is no such society in existence in the 
world as far as we know. Such a society could : 

1. See after the property of the insane. Many 
of them have no friends. They are sent to the asylum 
and when discharged their property has disappeared, 
and they are completely helpless and dependent at a 
time when, above all others, they should be cared for. 

2. Find the friends of the insane who are not 
aware of their condition. 

3. When discharged, find them congenial employ- 
ment, or care for them until such work is found. 

There are men who are discharged from the 
asylum cured; they try to find work and fail; in des- 
peration they begin to drink, and in a few days are 
back again where they were before, a further expense 
to the country. 

Women also are often driven into vice because 
thev know not where to g;o or what do when the 



184 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

doors of the asylum close behind them when they are 
dischaged as cured. 

As far as we know there is no Convalescent Hos- 
pital at present in Chicago. We wonder whether the 
kind-hearted of our city are aware that there are con- 
stantly being discharged from the various hospitals 
poor and infirm men and women who are no longer fit 
subjects for the hospital, but are no more capable of 
earning their own livelihood or battling with life than 
is a two year old baby. Weakened by months of 
combat with disease, often without friends or money, 
discharged as cured, they need loving helpfulness at 
this time just as much as they did when they were 
first taken to the hospital. May we not hope that this 
department of needed work will ere long find very 
many willing workers and ready money, so that these 
needy ones will be adequately cared for? 

POVERTY. 

" When rich men affirm that they can find no safe and 
wise use for their money in public-spirited charities, they 
reveal the grossest ignorance." 

Rev. John Henry Barrows, D. D. 

Indiscriminate giving to the poor is to be strongly 
deprecated. Healthful men and women who will 
not work should starve. But when one wants 
work, and tries hard to find it, and starves in the 
attempt, as many of both sexes in Chicago are now 
doing, something is fearfully wrong. It is simple non- 
sense to say this is not true, and it is equally nonsensi- 
cal to say that those who are brought to poverty by 
their own unworthiness should stay there and suffer. 
This is neither good humanity, Christianity or common 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 185 

sense. If a man falls down, even through his own folly, 
neither he nor the world will be benefited by allowing 
him to remain down for other people to fall over. It 
will pay in every way to help him up, and then help 
him keep his feet when up. Everything that does this 
is good, everything that hinders it is evil. 

In discussing these remedies, we shall endeavor to 
present them somewhat under their own headings, but 
it will be impossible to prevent one section from over- 
lapping into another. Poverty and all crime are so 
dependent one upon another, and various crimes are so 
interwoven that it is impossible to completely segregate 
them. 

Whilst in some things Chicago holds front rank in 
the world, it is sadly negligent in its care, for the poor. 
The Lodging Houses of Chicago are horrible places in 
which the abjectly poor are compelled by stern neces- 
sity to herd together. There is no adequate police 
supervision the keepers are under no special require- 
ments as to health and decency. Such places are too 
often the haunts of vice and crime, as well as of 
wretchedest poverty. This could be remedied as has 
most successfully been done in Glasgow, Scotland. In 
1870 the municipal government opened two model 
lodging houses, in which every lodger was " given a 
separate apartment, or stall, in one of the high, well 
ventilated flats, and has the use of a large common 
sitting-room, of a locker for provisions, and of the long 
kitchen range for cooking his own food. The charge 
per night is 3^ pence or 45^ pence (7 or 9 cents), ac- 
cording to the lodger's choice of a bed with one sheet 
or with two. (In any case he rests on a wire- woven 
mattress.) .... So decidedly successful in every way 



1 86 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

were these institutions, that another one in temporary 
quarters was opened in 1874, to be replaced by a large 
and permanent one in 1876. In 1878 two more were 
opened, and a seventh and last in 1879. 

Six of these houses are for men, and one for 
women, and the regulations of the city require that all 
lodging houses shall be for one sex or the other ex- 
clusively. 

The effect of these city houses has been to lead 
private enterprise to do similarly, conducting its 
establishments on the same strict rules for good order 
and cleanliness, and at the same price. The incidental 
advantage, or we should say direct outcome, of such, 
houses, has been the promotion of good order, and 
hence it has been a paying investment to the city as a 
police measure, and far more pleasing to the people 
than the erection of more police stations and common 
jails. 

Financially, too, they have paid. After allowing 
for deterioration of property and the payment of all 
running expenses, they yield a net return of from 4 to 
5 per cent, on the investment. " It costs about $6,000 
a year to ' run ' one of these houses, and the receipts 
are from $8,000 to $9,000. They are, therefore, a 
source of actual profit to the city, although, of course, 
designed primarily to promote good order and the wel* 
fare of the unfortunate classes."* 

This Glasgow plan is earnestly commended to the 
Chicago City Council, and also to the philanthropists 
of the city, as one available remedy for the ameliora- 
tion of the hard conditions of one class of our poor. 

'Glasgow; a Municipal Study, Century Magazine, March, 1890. 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 1 87, 

In Philadelphia a corporation was formed to pro- 
vide homes for working men. As the immediate out- 
come of the efforts of this institution 50,000 families 
were comfortably and enjoyably domiciled, and this was 
out the beginning. 

For, other working men, aroused to a spirit of 
emulation, and other philanthropists seeing the good 
accomplished, set to work with a will to build more 
houses, and in a short time another 200,000 mechanics 
in Philadelphia had well-built, comfortable homes of 
their own. These 250,000 centers of joy and peace are 
the death of anarchy in the Quaker City, and so they 
would be in Chicago if they existed on the southwest 
Chores of Lake Michigan. 

In Glasgow, a wealthy man conceived the idea of 
greeting cooking-depots for the poorer working classes 
*jf that densely-crowded city. He opened them, fitted 
them up in good style, supplied the men with better 
food and quicker service than was given in an ordinary 
restaurant, and at a lower price. Nine cents would buy 
n fair meal. Then there were rooms that, at night, or 
indeed at any time, could be used by the men, such as 
reading-rooms, club rooms, lecture hall, etc. 

Although this was started as a purely philanthropic 
plan it was not long before it began to pay 3 per cent, 
on the investment. The moral good was great, and 
the effect upon the lowering of the saloon and beer-hall 
business in the vicinity of these houses was markedly 
perceptible. 

The following from a recent issue of the Chicago 
Daily Ne-ws so fully expresses our thoughts on the 
Bubject of public baths that we quote it entire: 

" In many respects Chicago is not only the most 



1 88 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

wonderful but also the best appointed city on earth, and 
many of our institutions may be profitably followed as 
models by older and wealthier communities New 
York, for example. But in one respect Chicago still 
fails to provide for one of man's greatest necessities, 
Thousands upon thousands of human beings men, 
women and children to whom Chicago represents 
their world, are in a condition similar to that of Cole- 
ridge's ancient mariner. With a slight alteration of a 
classic text they may well exclaim: Water, water every- 
where, but not a chance to bathe! 

" It is, indeed, one of the paradoxes of Chicago life 
that this great city, situated upon the shore of a vast 
inland ocean, is without free public baths. The ordin- 
ance prohibiting bathing in the open air along the lake 
shore or in other bodies of water within the city limits 
is very proper, but it becomes an almost heartless 
cruelty to enforce it so long as the community fails to 
provide for the great army of people who cannot in 
their own homes command the opportunity to take a 
bath. As a matter of justice and sound civic wisdom 
the people of Chicago should have public bath houses. 

"They should be located in those neighborhoods, 
where people of small means reside, and should be so 
arranged and conducted as to be temples of cleanliness. 
They should not be small, dingy places, but large and 
airy halls, surrounded if possible by a large open space, 
kept in good order. If the city administration is too 
poor to build and maintain free bath houses, private 
benevolence which has furnished Chicago with such 
magnificent hospitals can find no more worthy object. 
It may even be argued that a private management 
would be better able to keep free public bath houses in 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 189 

a perfectly wholesome condition than a management 
controlled by politics. 

" At all events Chicago is lacking in one very im- 
portant particular and is guilty of injustice to a great 
number of people so long as it has no free public bath 
houses." 

And, during the summer months, it would be a 
good thing if a few well conducted floating baths were 
permitted on the Lake Front. With proper manage- 
ment they need not offend the good taste of those 
desirous of enjoying the view, and would certainly 
be a great boon to many classes of our hard working 
citizens. 

Both the public and floating baths have been con- 
ducted under city and town authority for many years in 
England and other European countries. They are not 
expected to be money making schemes, but are for the 
promotion of cleanliness and the public health, and are 
therefore, legitimate enterprises for our City Council 
So heartily and thoroughly engage in. 

Is it not possible for the city officials to set on foot 
some public works and city improvements which shall 
be for the purpose of giving the unemployed classes 
something to do? This plan was successfully carried 
out by Count Rumford, in Bavaria, and " How he 
banished beggary from Bavaria " might be a good 
pamphlet to commend to the Mayor and other servants 
of the people. In such work married men and those 
who have families dependent upon them resident in 
Chicago should be given the preference, then single 
men who are settled here, and finally the " stranger 
within our gates." 

Ingersoll has truthfully said " Ignorance, filth and 



IQO SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

poverty are the missionaries of crime." All that can 
be done to slay these missionaries should be done. 
There is no need for a solitary man, woman or child in 
Chicago to be long ignorant the law can compel in a 
variety of ways where the individual refuses to learn. 
Municipal ordinance can do much to do away with 
filth, and true-hearted Christian women can go and 
patiently teach those who are personally filthy how to 
be clean. If a band of Chicago women, with loving 
hearts and willing hands, would go into the homes of 
the poor and teach these neglected ones how to keep 
home neat and clean, much would be accomplished. 
The law should insist that in every dwelling place there 
be conveniences for cleanliness, sufficiency of ventila- 
tion and space enough for decency. And there should 
be some adequate registration of rents to prevent extor- 
tion as it is practiced in some quarters. 

Then it might be well to pray that another fire 
would come and sweep away all the horrible hovels 
where the poor and vicious are now crowded together, 
if we could only be assured that better places would 
subsequently be provided for them. 

The personal work referred to is the only way the 
poor can ever be uplifted. General Booth's plan will 
have no real permanent power except through loving, 
personal uplifting contact. The " Toynbee Hall " 
scheme is good as far as it goes, but it fails in important 
particulars the same as some church missions fail, 
because they substitute something else for this practical 
plan of Christ's. 

" But," said one gentleman, when this idea was 
given expression to by one of our commissioners, " Do 
you mean to say that Mr. and Mrs. should 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. IQI 

go down amongst these people and live with them in 
order to uplift them ': " 

"No! and Yes! " is our answer to these questions, 

"No!" when you mean living with them; "Yes!" 
when you mean going amongst them. Each and every 
man in good position with the true reformer heart must 
do some personal work amongst the needy. He cannot 
delegate it to others. He may not spend above half an 
hour a day, but that half hour is an absolute necessity 
for the preservation and cultivation of that tender sym- 
pathy and true affection within his own heart, and its 
response in the hearts of others, which alone makes "the 
brotherhood of man " practically possible. Sending 
checks to "institutions" will never accomplish much. 
It will do good so far, but it is only a step in the right 
direction, and, unless followed up by the personal love 
and sympathy of the donor, becomes a stumbiing-block 
both to himself and the institution, instead of a real, per- 
manent help. 

If this personal work were done, bargain counters 
would soon become a relic of a barbarous past. 

If you personally come in sympathetic touch with 
a poor sewing woman, and find her barely subsisting 
in wretched poverty as the result of the competition 
these counters engender, you will never again be con- 
tent to buy cheaply that which she has to starve to 
make. You will want to pay, and demand to pay a 
reasonable price for your goods. 

As far as possible we have quit buying from the 
stores such things as we can have made. We go to the 
workers themselves and pay them a reasonable price 
which in most cases is double what they have been 
receiving. 



IQ2 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

We personally "boycott" every institution which 
does not pay living wages. There are stores in this 
city thronged by great crowds, which are as great 
enemies to the welfare of the poor as are the saloons. 
Penal enactments should make it an impossibility for 
the proprietors of such places to offer wages to women 
which will not respectably board and clothe them. 

The person truly anxious for reform in these 
regards will determinately hunt out places to trade 
where the golden rule is the business motto, and not 
where the greatest bargains are to be had. Many a 
poor man with a family is struggling hard to keep the 
wolf from his door because he cannot honestly com- 
pete with his more wealthy and less scrupulous neigh- 
bor. To such as these give your trade, and demand of 
them that they charge you living prices for all they 
supply you with. Such trust begets response in higher 
ideals and warmer sympathies, and labor troubles 
would soon end if trust and sympathy reigned supreme 
instead of lust for gold. 

You, reader, can begin this work, perhaps only 
in a small way, but enough to sow the seed to in- 
sert the leaven. 

The Christian Church is as remiss in this duty 
as any other section of society, and it utterly fails in 
obedience to the Divine mandate, when it neglects 
it, and does not insist upon its observance in others. 

A great encouragement to thrift as evidenced in 
England and elsewhere is the establishment of savings 
banks for the poor. The government took this matter 
in hand, and people were allowed to stick postage 
stamps upon a sheet of paper and in this way make 
small deposits in their post offices. People are thus 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. IQ3 

helped to be more thrifty and saving, and poverty is 
often staved off at a critical time, which otherwise 
might mean disaster and ruin. 

The education of the youth of both sexes in Indus- 
trial Schools cannot be too strongly insisted upon. One 
of our own citizens, Mr. Jacobsen, has written "a clear 
and incisive treatise on this subject and we commend 
his work to our readers. Every boy and every girl 
should have some manual training, so that life would 
have a practical physical-labor side as well as a merely 
mental one. A movement is now on foot to pro- 
vide these manual schools for the poorer classes who 
do not wish the higher technical training. The purpose 
is to fit boys to be good artisans bricklayers, founders, 
moulders, fitters, wagon-makers and the like, and it 
seems to us that this is a step in the right direction. 

Why is it that rich men do not become their own 
almoners? There are many shrewd, keen busjness men 
such as A. T. Stewart and James Lick, or lawyers like 
S. J. Tilden, all of whom, one would think, could have 
arranged their wills so that there could not possibly 
have been any dispute over them, and yet, hundreds of 
thousands of the dollars they wished to be used for 
philanthropic objects are being, or have been squan- 
dered in lawyers' and court fees. It is a good thing, 
rich men, to leave your money for helpful work, when 
you die, but it is a very much better thing to personally 
superintend its distribution. Only when this latter 
course is pursued, will it be properly done, and if it 
were done in this city beginning from to-day, it would 
not be ten years before Chicago would be renowned as 
the most philanthropic city of the earth. And such it 
ought to be. 



1 94 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

The following 'article from the pen of 
Louis Stevenson, which appeared in Scribner's Maga 
zinc, is a presentation of the subject of poverty and the 
poor which is worthy of consideration : 

" There is true poverty, which no one sees; a false 
and merely mimetic poverty, which usurps its place and 
dress, and lives, and above all drinks, on the fruits of 
the usurpation. The -true poverty does not go into the 
streets; the banker ma}- rest assured he has never put 
a penny in its hand. The self-respecting poor beg 

from each other; never from the rich Get 

the tale of any honest tramp, you will find it was al- 
ways the poor who helped him; get the truth from any 
workman who has met misfortunes, it was always next 
door that he would go for help, or only with such ex- 
ceptions as are said to prove a rule 

" We should wipe two words from our vocabulary 
gratitude and charity. In real life, help is given out 
of friendship, or it is not valued; it is received from the 
hand of friendship, or it is resented. We are all too 
proud to take a naked gift; we must seem to pay for it, 
if in nothing else than with the delights of our society. 
Here, then, is the pitiful fix of the rich man; here is 
that needle's eye in which he stuck already in the days 
of Christ, and still sticks to-day, firmer, if possible, than 
ever: that he has the money and lacks the love which 
should make his money acceptable. Here and now, 
just as of old in Palestine, he has the rich to dinner; it 
is with the rich that he takes his pleasure; and when 
his turn comes to be charitable, he looks in vain for a 
recipient. His friends are not poor, they do not want; 
the poor are not his friends, they will not take. To 
whom is he to give? Where to find note this phrase 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 195 

the Deserving Poor? Charity is (what they call) 
centralized; offices are hired; societies founded, with 
secretaries paid or unpaid; the hunt of the Deserving 
Poor goes merrily forward. I think it will take more 
than a merely human secretary to disinter that char- 
acter. What ! a class that is to be in want from no 
fault of its own, and yet greedily eager to receive from 
strangers; and to be quite respectable, and at the same 
time quite devoid of self-respect; and play the most del- 
icate part of friendship, and yet never be seen ; and wear 
the form of man, and yet fly in the face of all the laws 
of human nature; and all this, in the hope of getting 
a belly-good burgess through a needle's eye! O, let 
him stick by all means; and let his polity tumble in the 
dust; and let his epitaph and all his literature (of which 
my own works begin to form no inconsiderable part) 
be abolished even from the history of man! For a 
fool of this monstrosity of dullness, there can be no sal- 
vation; and the fool who looked for the elixir of life 
was an angel of reason to the fool who looks for the 
Deserving Poor ! . . . 

"And yet there is one course which the unfortunate 
gentleman may take. He may subscribe to pay the 
taxes. There were the true charity, impartial and im- 
personal, cumbering none with obligation, helping all. 
There were a destination for loveless gifts; there were 
the way to reach the. pockets of the Deserving Poor, 
and yet save the time of secretaries! But, alas! there is 
no color of romance in such a course; and people no- 
where demand the picturesque so much as in their 
virtues." 



196 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

THE SALOON. 

The keynote to our whole position on this question 
is " the saloon must go!" We would no more tolerate 
the saloon than murder. Our voice and pen are forever 
pledged to unceasing warfare. upon this hideous evil, 
Death and burial to it are the only things that will con- 
tent us. 

In Chicago high license has been tried, and with 
what result? It has raised the licensed saloon in num- 
bers to 5,600. Liquor purchased in a high-licensed 
saloon will send a man to the devil as quickly as if pur- 
chased in one without any license; and unfortunately 
the ' high license " places a false and dangerous halo 
of respectability about the saloon that it never ought to 
possess. 

There are two ways of fighting the saloon evil. 
The one is by direct aggressive work against it, legal- 
izing it out of existence, and the other is by counter- 
acting its influence. 

We would suggest the enforcement of all the 
present laws against the saloon. If Mayor Washburne 
wants a German Sunday let him know that it is against 
the wish of the better sentiment of the people of Chi- 
cago. Surely there are enough Americans in this city 
to shoulder the responsibility of enforcing the law. Let 
these men get together, and we will find them a man 
who will do it or die in the attempt, and another who 
is ready to take the place of the first should he become 
a martyr to the cause. 

Punish every saloon man who sells liquor to 
minors, and amend the law so as to take away his 
license without a possibility of renewal for this offense. 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

Elect men to the bench who have the moral 
stamina enough to enforce the will of the people as 
expressed in their laws. 

No saloon should be quartered upon people in a 
neighborhood where the majority do not want it. 

The necessity for this will be apparent to any one 
who will read the account in the Chicago Herald Mon- 
day, May 18, 1891, of the opening of a saloon on Ver- 
non Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, where the people 
of the whole neighborhood had protested against it. 
We briefly quote: "Women who passed by shrank 
with horror as the foul language penetrated the green 
blinds of the saloon and filled the air, and mothers were 
compelled to cross the street to remove their children 
from the contamination of the oath-filled air 

" It seemed as if the place was filled with demons 
who came there to disturb the peace of the Sabbath. 
Men who lived in the handsome residences within 
thirty feet of the flashy saloon gave the place a wide 
berth when they were compelled to pass south to 

Thirty-fifth street They sneered and 

jeered at the people who had protested against the 
opening of the saloon. The glaring white and yellow 
liquor shop seemed like a foul spot on a fair picture. 
Trees on which the bright green leaves were bursting 
forth into the open, lined the avenue, and fair green 
lawns dotted with flowers made the district one of 
sylvan picturesqueness. But the garish saloon, with 
its hideous crowd of drunken loafers, cast a glow of 
shame over the whole scene." 

We would suggest the enactment of a law which 
should imprison every man found drunk, and at once 
send the officers to seek to find out from where he 



198 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

obtained the drink. Then transfer the punishment to 
the men who supplied the drunkard with the means of 
his debasement, and make the penalty of the saloon- 
keeper imprisonment without the option of a fine. 

Every man found drunk and convicted five suc- 
cessive times should lose his rights of citizenship until a 
certain period has passed, and the saloon-keeper who 
makes him drunk for double that period. 

Refuse to grant to any man or body of men in 
their corporate capacity more than one license. 

Immediately revoke the license of any saloon 
where known prostitutes are allowed to take their prey, 
anjd thus break up the detestable " cubby hole " system. 

Enforce the law, or if there be no law, enact one 
for the suppression of the lewd exhibitions on the walls 
of saloons. 

There should be a law passed prohibiting any 
saloon-keeper, theater-manager or any other person 
from employing girls or women to serve beer and any 
other alcoholic beverage in public places. In many 
saloons and theaters these girls are simply prostitutes,, 
and in other places girls are thus placed where, more 
than anywhere else, they are liable to temptation. 

For counteracting influences organize Coffee 
Houses where men may go and enjoy themselves with- 
out the alcoholic liquors. Make them more attractive 
in appearance than the saloon. Open up hundreds of 
them in every quarter of the city where public works 
are centered. 

Establish more water fountains in every part of 
the city. The Humane Society and several public- 
spirited citizens have done something in this direction. 
This is i\ good investment for our wealthy men. 



SUGGESTIVE RKMF.DIES. 199 

It is a great shame that in Chicago nearly every 
watering trough for horses is owned by a saloon, thus 
attracting men to drink, in return for the convenience 
offered for the accommodation of the horse. These 
watering troughs should be the care of the city. 

It is likewise a gross negligence of public duty 
that there are not necessary conveniences for men ex- 
cept in the saloons and hotels. Public buildings do not 
offer accommodations for the general public. Many a 
man is tempted to drink because he must of necessity 
enter these places. Thousands of Europeans are ex- 
pected to be here at the World's Fair. They will be 
astonished at this gross neglect, and will comment most 
unfavorably upon the mock modesty that dares not to 
make public provision for such necessities. The large 
cities of Europe can give us many lessons in this 
Regard. 

The education of the young will do much to break 
the power of the saloon, but not only should this in- 
clude the question of alcoholics and narcotics, but like- 
wise practical methods of dieting. Many a man drinks 
because he is not provided with proper food, and there 
is a much closer connection between our food and our 
drink habits than we are willing to believe. -Pour in 
the light of knowledge all around on this question, and 
keep up legal enactments, counteracting influences, edu- 
cation and moral suasion until the whole accursed saloon 
system is forever suppressed. 

THEATERS, ETC. 

It is natural that human beings should seek for 
amusement and entertainment. If we deprecate the 
existence of the low theater and concert hall and 



2OO SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

museum, we must see that something else better take 
their places. 

We would suggest the patronage of such places 
only as present good, clean, instructive and entertaining 
amusement. Christian men and women are often in- 
consistent, but never more so than when attending so- 
called respectable theaters, where often indecent and 
immoral plays are presented. Let them cleanse their 
own hearts and resolutely keep away from these places, 
if they wish to make reformation amongst the poorer 
classes. If the church people were to refuse to attend 
theaters where plays of the sensational character are 
presented, the audiences \vould be very small and the 
managers would be compelled to provide cleaner and 
purer entertainments. 

People will have recreation and amusement. Why 
not establish in every quarter of the city a number of 
large public halls, dotted here and there more than 
there are theaters where, for a very small fee, people 
may attend good concerts, entertainments, lectures, ex- 
hibitions and the like. The Apollo Musical Club and 
Mr. W. L. Tomlins have done grand work in inaugurat- 
ing the wage-workers' concerts in the Auditorium, but 
this is only one step in the right direction. What 
Chicago needs is the establishment by true philan- 
thropists of these halls right where the working classes 
live. Wherever the plan has been tried under broad, 
sensible management, it has succeeded, and there is no 
reason why it should not be successful here. Look at 
the immense crowds that throng the music halls where 
beer, &c., are sold. Provide the music without the 
beer give the entertainment without the temptation 
and the other places at once begin to lose their power. 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 2OI 

Men and women of every shade of opinion and belief 
can contribute heartily toward the support of such a 
work, and it will allow those people of whom there 
are a large number who are unfavorable to the church 
organizations, to show their liberality in a public 
spirited enterprise. 

Singing classes might be organized all over the 
city, especially in the thickly populated residence dis- 
tricts, and a corps of able teachers secured to give in- 
struction, the whole to be under the direction of 
Mr. William L. Tomlins, whose name is a synonym 
of success. This work is reformatory, instructive and 
elevating in character, but to those who doubt it let 
them attend some of the classes during their hours of 
instruction and see what a wonderful educator is song 
and what joy it gives to the parents of the young. 

Of course such plans cost money, but which is the 
better: to do this and expend in prevention, or later on 
to tax the people and spend the money in sending the 
depraved and ruined to prisons and reformatories? 
Philanthropy in every way pays, and when it is com- 
bined with the loving spirit it is more potent and 
powerful than any other force. The refining influence 
of good music works a great improvement in the 
manners of children which teachers and all who are 
familiar with its study remark with astonishment. If 
this plan could be enlarged a thousand fold, how great 
a help it would be towards the dawning of a brighter 
.and better day for these poor children of Chicago. 

Our wealthy men are often skeptical regarding the 
plans proposed to them for the disposition of their 
money to be expended for the public good. The 
above suggestion, if intelligently and generously sup- 



2O2 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

ported and personally supervised by the donors, com- 
bined with first-class teachers, would have an influence 
for good which would counteract many evils in the 
lives and hearts of the young. 

The following plan is in operation by The Ab- 
stainers' Union of Glasgow, Scotland : they have several 
large halls and the artists engaged are first-class. In 
these entertainments everything is done for the comfort 
of the audience, and for a few cents concerts, etc., are 
given often tea, coffee, and cake are served right 
where the masses live. These people do not wish 
charity, but are willing to pay a few cents or at least 
as much as they do to enter the low variety shows and 
concert halls for good amusement. As an investment 
the plan has been successful, and a balance to the credit 
of the Union is declared every year. It requires but 
an organization conducted on business principles to 
carry it out successfully in Chicago. 

It takes too long and costs too much for many of 
the poor laboring men to get to the Auditorium. The 
cost of car fare would be sufficient to pay for an 
entertainment in the very heart of the district in which 
the workers live. There are as philanthropic and public 
spirited citizens in Chicago as there are to be found in 
any of our large cities, and we would that they realized 
the splendid opportunity here presented. 

Our churches which possess organs could open 
their doors and give free organ concerts to the poor, or 
at least at a price less than 5oc., 750., and $1.00. The 
organists are here, the poor are here, the only thing 
lacking is the Christ-like spirit to give our good things 
to those who do not possess them. 

Chicago's Public Library is a good one generally 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES, 203 

speaking, but its usefulness could be increased tenfold, 
nay a thousand fold, at a trifling cost. Every student 
of sociology knows the fearful evils resulting from a 
devouring on the part of the young and impressible of 
books of a wrongly sensational, sexually-exciting and 
morbidly-stimulating character. Young minds need 
active guidanc.e in the choice of books. This can be 
well done, if in the new building to be erected, a large 
" library lecture hall" be arranged for, in which, every 
night in the year, lectures on the many and varied 
topics in which the people are interested, might be 
given, by live, active, aggressive thinkers, and books 
for study of these special subjects be indicated on a 
blackboard, or on printed slips, for the guidance of the 
reader. The city^hould provide the highest and best 
mental pabulum for its inhabitants, and this lecture plan 
if tried, would unquestionably be a continuous success, 
if the right kind of men and women were in possession 
of the rostrum. 

The churches, many of them, have missions in vari- 
ous parts of the city. Let them build more churches 
right where the people live, hold regular services,, 
prayer meetings, Sabbath schools, etc., just as they do 
on the avenues. Let the people take hold of the work 
of the church, they will contribute towards its support, 
take a pride in working for their own church, and feel 
more at home there, where the folks are not too rich 
to cause caste distinctions, and where the poor will not 
feel uncomfortable if their clothes are shabby. The 
poor will give of the little they have with more gene- 
rosity than the majority of the well-to-do. There are 
amongst the workingmen of Chicago many intelligent 
not to say well-educated men. They are qualified 



204 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

to assist and help in church work amongst their own 
class, and here is an opportunity which they could 
never have in our large and fashionable churches. 

If all signs do not fail, there is a strong current 
flowing already in the direction of more popular reli- 
gious service, where there will be less preaching and 
more music, both vocal and instrumental. Several of 
the larger churches have found it necessary, in order 
to secure the same large audience at night that they 
have in the morning, to engage competent musicians, 
and the cornet, flute, harp, violin and organ unite their 
strains in harmony as important features of the service. 

The sermon is shortened to about fifteen minutes, 
and is generally a clear-cut, clean, pithy, practical talk, 
which bears upon the everyday life, and duties of the 
hearers. This is as it should be, and is a step in the 
right direction. 

If this is necessary in order to keep the congrega- 
tions of those ministers who have large brain power, 
who are eloquent and impassioned orators, and who give 
rich intellectual feasts, what must be done in those 
churches where the pastors aie men of only mediocre 
ability, and who minister to the poor and lonely? 

Why do not some of the great preachers of our 
city, now and again, when they have no evening service 
in their own churches, give of their talent to the people 
in the neglected localities, dozens of which may be 
found in our city. This would be far more charitable 
than seeking to hold services, with great eclat, in the 
large public halls, which, however much good they 
accomplish, iitterly and completely fail to reach the 
great mass of degraded, wretched and criminal, who 
need such help more than any other 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 205 

The masses can be reached by going to them, just 
as the greatest of all Teachers did. " The common 
people heard Him gladly." 

That teaching and preaching will be spiritually 
uplifting that reaches the hearts of the "common peo- 
ple;" but they can never be reached by standing aloof 
from them. 

In. Chicago there is no public museum of antiqui- 
ties, except a homeless vagrant collection, which be- 
longs to nobody and is nobody's particular care. 

There are no museums of ethnology or botany or 
zoology or mineralogy or conchology or anything of 
the kind. We boast of our advanced position, and yet 
there are small towns in New England where their 
youth have far greater advantages in this regard than 
we in our great and wonderful city can offer. 

As for some of the vile dens called theaters, we 
have fully reported, we would see them closed once 
and forever as public nuisances. 

IMMORAL DIVES. 

We have scarcely patience to refer to these hell 
holes, A dozen true-hearted brave Christian men 
could shut them up in a week. 

Policemen should be held responsible for failure to 
report their existence on their beats, and discharge be 
the penalty. 

As for the goods, etc., sold in them they should 
be confiscated and burned, and the keepers imprisoned, 
without the option of a fine. 

OBSCENE BOOKS, ETC. 
We need an Anthony Comstock in Chicago to 



2O6 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

cause the arrest of all men and women found engaged 
in this work. 

Since the main body of the book was written we 
have found a man on the corner of two of our prin- 
cipal streets with a large number of the books des- 
cribed spread out 'on the sidewalk, offering them for 
sale, and no attempt being made to stop him. 

We would have arrested and punished every the- 
atrical manager, every bill-poster, every printer, pub- 
lisher, manufacturer or salesman, and every exhibitor, 
and even every possessor of lewd books, pictures or ad- 
vertisements. 

To parents we would commend the words of Anna 
Garlin Spencer: 

" There are two inflexible rules which every pa- 
rent should obey and make the child obey, in respect to* 
all reading outside of that required and suggested by a 
competent and trusted teacher in connection with school 
work. The first rule is, get the best and widest knowl- 
edge possible to you in respect to mentally and morally 
desirable books and papers Jor your children to read. 
The second rule is, allow no child to read anything 
^which you have not selected your self nnderstandingly.' 1 ' 1 

THE SOCIAL EVIL. 

" He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at 
her." Jtsus of Nazareth. John viii. 

"And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee : go, and 
sin no more." 

" The real man is the woman he carries in his heart. It she be 
an angel of a woman, she will be apt to make an angel of a man; but 
il she be a devil of a woman, look out for him." 

Rev. Dr. irniiams, of Baltimore. 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES, 2QJ 

" No woman" (and we would add no man) " can sink so low 
into the dark bog and quagmire of vice a ; to be beyond the reach of 
the hand of our Lord, that hand that was nailed to the cruel cross 
of Calvary." 

Rev. /'. II'. Gmtsanlus, D.D. 

'' Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentler sister woman; 
Though they may gang a kennin wrang, 

To step aside is human : 
One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving why they do it ! 
And just as lamely can ye mark 

How far, perhaps, they rue it. 

"Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us. 
He knows each chord its various tone, 

Each spring its various bias : 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted !" 

Burns. 

For the Social Evil, as well as the Saloon Evil, 
there are two forms of remedies: one, suppressive, tire 
other, preventive. 

We have spoken of the same law for men as 
women. Now let us apply this in a way not yet 
spoken of. 

If a man insultingly accosts a woman on the public 
streets he is in danger of arrest and imprisonment. 
That is good. Let us have the same standard for men 
and women, and the woman who insultingly accosts a 
man on the public streets should likewise be subject to 
arrest and imprisonment. Many a young man in Chi- 
cago is dragged into moral ruin this way, who might 



2O8 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

otherwii-e escape. Let the law operate equally upon 
both sexes. 

We would suggest the closing up of every house 
of prostitution. The toleration of the "house of death" 
educates the young in the belief that it is necessary. 

We would suggest the enactment of laws visiting 
severe punishment upon seducers, whether male or fe- 
male. 

We would abolish the age of consent entirely, but 
enact laws that should make it impossible for a woman 
under any circumstances to give consent to the viola- 
tion of her chastity, and render punishment to the 
" stronger vessel," who cajoled or persuaded or forced 
the " weaker " into submission. 

We would disfranchise married men who were 
known to be habitually unchaste, whether they were 
millionaires, statesmen or paupers. A man who cannot 
control his own sexual appetite, when he has his own 
wife, is not fit to be entrusted with the powers of the 
ballot-box. 

For the lecherous wretches who tamper with 
young girls (see page 109 et seg.) we would suggest 
one of two things life imprisonment, or incarceration 
in a lunatic asylum. Until penitent and duly reformed, 
no mercv should be shown to such vile polluters of our 
young. 

The laws already on the statute book ought to be 
sufficient to prevent abortion, if properly enforced. 

MASSAGE PARLORS. 

Evil massage parlors should come under the same 
laws as houses of prostitution, and thus totally abol- 
ished. 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 2OQ 

PROCURESSES AND ABDUCTORS. 

The laws bearing upon procuring and abducting 
are all sadly defective, and should be so amended as to 
make it exceedingly difficult for the criminal to escape. 
One has but to read the reports of the Women's Pro- 
tective Agency to see how defective the laws are in this 
regard. 

But while we speak thus of law, we believe pre- 
vention is the only real cure for these evils. And pre- 
vention must begin in ourselves and in the training of 
our children. One of our commissioners thus writes: 

" I believe the time will come when men will ab- 
solutely hate the prudery and mock modesty of the 
present day, which says to the boy and girl: ' You may 
learn every other lesson you like but the law of your 
own being.' The first and most important lesson of 
life is left for the boy to learn on the streets and from 
vile companions, and the girl must secretly, and often- 
times dangerously, get the knowledge as she can. 
What a national imbecility, what suicidal folly ! 

" Oh, but I'm afraid my son will lose his purity and 
modesty if he learns these things." 

You poor blind simpleton, would to God I could 
arouse your reason and show you the ruinous folly of 
your position ! 

Are you so foolish as to think that your son and 
daughter will be kept in ignorance of this, the most im- 
portant of the laws of nature, with so many things to 
teach it to them? The literature of the present day is 
full of sex suggestions, the Bible from lid to lid, from 
the first page where " Be fruitful and multiply," speaks 
the command of procreation, to the last page, where 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 211 

Ignorance; only in the full light of knowledge can the 
curse be removed. 

Many books have been written for this purpose, 
and some of them, at least, are well adapted to meet 
certain phases of the difficulty. Children's ques- 
tionings should be rightly answered, and we propose, 
when we have time, to write such a book as will show 
parents how they may, in the most natural, and there- 
fore the wisest way, communicate this knowledge to 
their children. 

There, too, should be the most positive and em- 
phatic teaching as to the same law of life inhering to 
each sex. A woman has as much right to demand a 
clean lover as has a man. Let the dual standard of 
chastity be swept away. 

The " physical necessity " doctrine is a foul slander 
upon manhood. It has no other basis than in man's 
passion. The absorption of the vital fluid into the 
blood for the building up of nerve and muscular struc- 
ture, which means increased brain and physical power 
altogether does away with the idea of " necessity." 
Let these physiological laws be thoroughly understood 
by women, and at once a decided change for the better 
Avill come. 

And while we thus speak of education we must 
not forget the vast numbers who are now imprisoned 
in this great house of vice. These need to be rescued. 
The Rev. W. D. Smock has organized a midnight mis- 
sion for the carrying out of this work, but the helpers 
are few. Consecrated men and women are needed 
who will go out during the hours before midnight and 
urge these women to leave their abandoned career and 
begin the new life of purity. Then a number of homes 



212 SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 

should be in operation where these women can go and 
be taught occupations to fit them to earn their living, 
and be generally assisted until they are competent to 
care for themselves. 

Another branch of this work is the founding of a 
home (of course in no way connected with the other 
one mentioned above), for shop and office girls, who 
are away from home, whose wages are so small that 
they can barely subsist on them. A place where they 
can have their own separate rooms, where in a large 
parlor, or a series of them, they may be truly at 
home, with all that the word implies. Surely there 
are philanthropists enough in this great city to see that 
such works are begun and carried out. We shall be 
glad to place them in communication with those who 
are competent and willing to do this work, but who 
have not the means. There are several such places in 
Chicago, but their number and accommodations are ut- 
terly inadequate to the needs of this large class of 
women and girls; and in them the idea somehow pre- 
vails that the institutions are charitable. This is not the 
thing. These girls will pay what they can, but the 
name of charity should not appear to those who pay ; 
and the homes can be made self-supporting, even if the 
rates are low. The numbers who will take advantage 
of the homes will guarantee their success. 

Of course we have but given suggestive remedies. 
There is no attempt made to formulate a great plan 
that reaches the world by its gigantic organization, but 
a return to the old principle laid down by Christ. Any 
plan which delegates the personal, loving contact to a 
society, \vill fail, no matter how much love there may 
be in the hearts of those who are conducting the society. 



SUGGESTIVE REMEDIES. 213 

Personal duty cannot be delegated, and in its discharge. 
like "mercy" it is twice blessed. "It blesseth 

him that gives and him that takes," and is more mighty 
and potent than any and all other forces in the universe. 
With renewed activity in all lines of philanthropic 
work, hearts alive to the needs of others, ready hands 
willing to help, such sympathy and love as Christ man- 
ifested for our brothers and sisters, flowing freely in 
every direction, our city would receive such an impetus 
towards heaven as to make it indeed the most wonder- 
ful and beautiful of the cities of earth. 



Since CHICAGO'S DARK PLACES has been put into 
electrotype plates, we find a matter, which is of vital im- 
portance to the people, has received no attention. The 
following article, by W. H. Morse, M.D., physician and 
chemist, of New York City, which appeared in the 
Chicago Times, of June 16,1891 explains the subject: 

REVELATIONS OF DE QUIXCEY'S LIFE. 

I do not know that I ever anticipated the publication of 
any work with keener impatience than that which I accorded 
to H. A. Page's "Thomas de Quincey, His Life and Writings." 
It was fourteen years ago, and at that time English publica- 
tions did not reach this country quite as expeditiously as they 
do now. Consequently, it was not till some months after its 
announcement by John Hogg & Co. , of London, that a copy 
reached me. It was read with careproportionate to the an- 
ticipation of issue and with something like avidity. But, on 
the whole, it was disappointing. To tell the truth, I cared 
little for the life story of the master of English literature, and, 
naturally, Mr. Page's work could not gain the deserved appre- 
ciation. My object in reading was to know more of the 
opium-eater of De Quincey as a sinner of many omissions. 
Perhaps I expected the biographer to edit the "Confessions" 
with copious appendices, and because that he did otherwise 
the disappointment came. At the least, it was because <f such 
lack of narration that I failed to apprehend the coveted fasci- 
nation. 



214 CHICAGO S DARK PLACES. 

The " Confessions" had fascinated me as they hare thou- 
sands of others, and the great desire was to know De Quincey 
intimately in that which he so aptly styled ' ' that episode, or 
impassioned parenthesis, in my life. " Failing of the knowl- 
edge the book failed of interest. In years coming later that 
knowledge was gained otherwise. Because that Mr. Page had 
not enlightened me I took interest in opium-eaters in general, 
and in studying them I have completed the biography of that 
most subtle of literary analysts. To do this is no extraordinary 
accomplishment, for have we not all seen Miltons in blind, 
wayside beggars, Charles Lambs in wandering, \vitless fellows, 
and Napoleons in Boulangers Y Perhaps, however, a parallel 
case would be in finding out the " real " Byron in a study of 
the roues of our great cities ! However this may be, the fact 
of the understanding of De Quincey's life through the media of 
other like-broken lives has been of greatest interest and profit. 

I have seen the man in the habitues who, regardless of 
the ordinary obligations of social life, stand forth to demand 
pity and belie contempt. I have photographed him in the poor 
creature's capricious and erratic ways. I have known the 
years of a quarter century gone in the human beast, lawless of 
considerations of health and comfort. As are these men, so 
was De Quincey. In them I see endaemonistic qualities, the 
possibilities of abstraction, the disposition to a genuine more 
socratico character. The depraved being who "hits the pipe" 
or surreptitiously uses the hypodermic syringe, can be readily 
suspected of an ability to write a ' ' Suspirio de Prof undis. " 
The abject and despicable wretch, scarcely able to hold a pen 
in his trembling fingers, pleads guilty in my mind to graceful 
periodicalism. 

Moreover, with intensity of satisfaction I have speculated 
on the possibilities of what might have been had De Quincey's 
case been treated by modern medicine. Laryngeetomy, at 
the time invented, could have saved Washington's life: the use 
of quinine would have cured Queen Elizabeth : an instrument 
now in commonest use might haye prolonged the usefulness of 
William Pitt. "But opium -eat ing is different, " in popular 
opinion. Not so, however. We cure opium-eaters now ; we 
could have cured that man of the highest imaginative intellect. 
The parallel of my study stops there when I consider this; for 
the man who is the victim of this grave disease is treated suc- 
cessfully in our day. Ten years, spent extravagantly, was 
sufficient to change the complexion of a matter which had 
rather have demanded parsimony. 

Two and thirty years ago, when De Quincey died, opium- 
eating was not catalogued as a disease. To-day it has a place 
in the nosology. When it took that place, now some twenty 
years ago, it was rated an incurable disease. Writers on the 
"Impossible in Medicine" named it with cancer, hydrophobia 
and Bright's disease. 1 he knife for cancer, dietetic measures 



CHICAGO'S DARK PLACES. 215 

in Bright'* disease, cod liver oil in consumption all " might 
prolong life." So of opium eating. Physicians \vlio attempted 
cure would resort to one of three ways : Stopping the use of. 
the drug gradually, stopping it immediately, or changing the 
form of administration. These methods "might do," and in a 
certain percentage <>f cases were efficacious, but there was 
nothing rational about such measures of treatment, and mere 
tentative application is scarcely creditable to a learned profes- 
sion. On all sides the admission has been made that to break 
off the habit by sucli conduct is exceedingly difficult, and can 
only be effected by actual external restraint, or the stron 
effort of a powerful will, especially when confirmation of the 
habit is fully descrihablc a- Succeeding in a few 

cases and failing in many, such treatment has never redounded 
to the credit of the medical profession The recognition 
of this fact acted a^ an advertisement of something 
better, and led to the establishment of "retreats" and 
"asylums "and "discovery" of remedies." It is quite un- 
necessary to dwell upon the discrimination between the su< < 
and the failure of these method*. Much can be predicated in 
the favor of rest, change of thought and living and the better- 
ment of surroundings. These measures do good, but if they 
contribute to the cure o tse they fail m nine, Of the 

" remedies " it is best to speak with reserve. I do not question 
that hydrochlorate of morphia, chloride of gold, and the like, 
have to do with the cure, but it is hardly worth while to put 
much confidence in a rotten and rickety bridge, though it lias 
been crossed in safety dine and again. 

Such treatment comes short of rational medicine, and, un- 
derstanding this, physicians have sought the appropriate pro- 
vision. Dr. J. F. Albers' idea of astringent vegetables to he 
used in the patient's dietary was good and has worked well, 
the tannin of the vegetables limiting physiological activity by 
forming tannate of morphia, which is not readily soluble. Dr. 
Roberts Bartholow's advocacy of the use of belladonna, on the 
principle of the antagonism maintained between it and opium, 
has been measured by success: but to substitute belladonna 
narcosis for opium narcosis is hazardous at best. Dr. J. M. 
DaCosta's "free use of black coit'ee" has undoubtedly procured 
good results in milder cases. Professor (lubler's argument for 
quinine, on the strength of its antagonizing the cerebral effects 
of opium, is well founded, and the same may be said of tartar 
emetic (Dr. A. Erlenmeyer) and for digitalis (Dr. O. J. B. 
Wolff). Claude Bernard has done well to recommend cocoa, 
and Dr. J. By water Ward to approve strychnia. All of these 
are "cures," but a better one than any other is that of Dr. S. B. 
Collins, of Chicago, who lias the patient renounce the drug, 
and then provides against the craving by the use of an anti- 
dotal remedy, which acts as a true antidote. Nothing can )>< 
more emphatically confirmed in therapeutics than the feasi- 



216 CHICAGO'S DARK PLACES. 

bility of antidotal or antagonistic treatment. Opium is a 
]X)ison, and a poison demands an antidote. The principle is 
that of vaccination for smallpox, of quinine for intermittent 
fever, of salicin for rheumatism, of iron for anaemia. 

I confess that I do not like to think upon Thomas de 
Qumcey as having been diseased by opium or poisoned by its 
use. But what else was it? AVhat else is that which is destroy- 
ing the hundreds and thousands of our day? The extent of the 
prevalence of the opium habit is as enormous and dreadful as 
it is alarming. We may be indifferent to the fact that there 
are H. 000,000 or 6,000,000 habitues in Asia; but think of it! 
100,000 Americans eat opium, 1,000,000 Americans indulge in 
opium-smoking, a legion of Americans use hypodermic injec- 
tions of morphia as a terrible luxury. And the habit is in- 
creasing. There are hundreds who eat an ounce a week, the 
average being, however, much less (live to forty -five grains a 
day). They are our neighbors. Yonder is the man! That is 
the woman! There is the child of t be accursed parent! As 
compared with alcoholic drinks in engendering crimes and in- 
sanity opium stands all too well. The wealthy use it and the 
poor are its slave. The schoolgirl, the shopboy, the mechanic, 
the sewing-woman, the man of ease, the scholar, the wretch 
whom the gutter spurns are all under the dread dominion. 
I remark the habit in all classes, and strenuously deny the oft- 
heard statement that the habitues are chiefly individuals of 
weak will power, low down in the walks of life, who would 
just as easily become the victims of intoxicating drinks. There 
are such, but there are men of De Quincey's type clergymen, 
lawyers, men and women of all vocations who are quite as 
much the moral imbeciles. 

Shall we cry out a tirade against the Chinese as factors in 
the crime? Shame on us, if we do ! The opium joint becomes 
harmless when we bring other factorships to light. The man- 
ufacture and sale of hypodermic syringes is a leading industry 
among surgical instrument makers, but although every physi- 
cian has his syringe, he buys but one out of every four that 
are manufactured. The druggist would require twice as long 
to empty his opium jar if his only customers were medical 
men. The opium "fiend" is to be met on every street. The 
evil is the evil of a death-life. 

"What'can be done? The law pshaw! "Moral suasion." 
Moral suasion to death, Cr., By .000 souls lost. 

De Quincey's picture has been placed on an eloquent page 
by W. R. Findlay. It is that of a personified intellect perfect, 
persuasive, cordial engraved in line lines on one side of the 
printed page. But hold it to the light. There is a picture on 
the other side. It shows through the paper. It is that of a 
haggard, nervous, depraved creature. Looking on it, I cannot 
but (>egin to appreciate the fidelity of Mr. Page's work. 



Police Reports for 1890. 



THE following extracts are taken from the re- 
port of the General Superintendent of 
Police for the year ending December 31, 1890: 

The total number of men constituting the force at date is 
1,900, assigned to duty as follows: 

General superintendent i 

Secretary i 

Inspectors 5 

Captains 13 

Lieutenants 50 

Patrol Sergeants 52 

Desk Sergeants 79 

Custodian i 

Clerks 4 

Lock-up keepers 16 

Patrolmen on permanent post duty 204 

Patrolmen on patrol duty i ,072 

Patrolmen detailed in plain dress 1 77 

Patrolmen detailed in signal service 127 

Patrolmen detailed in ambulance service 8 

Patrolmen detailed on licenses 18 

Patrolmen detailed as vehicle inspectors 2 

Patrolmen detailed as pawnshop inspectors 6 

Patrolmen specially detailed 51 

Bailiffs 7 

Pound keepers 4 

Phothographer i 

Veterinary i 

CLASSICATION OF AGES OF PERSONS ARRESTED. 

Number under 10 years of age 231 

Number between 10 and 20 years of age 10,862 

Number between 20 and 30 years of age 26,742 

Number between 30 and 40 years of age 13.995 

Number between 40 and 50 years of age 73 2 

Number between 50 and 60 years of age 2 .557 

Number between 60 and 70 years of age 707 

Number between 70 and 80 years of age 102 

Number between 80 and 90 years of age 2 

Total 62,230 



218 CHICAGO'S DARK PLACES. 

NUMBER OF ARRESTS AND AMOUNT OF FIN 
IMPOSED EACH MONTH. 

MONTHS. ARRESTS. FINES. 

January 3,730 $27,29500 

February 4,005 2 7>955 

M arch 4,699 26,755 oo 

April 5,375 34,41800 

May 5,467 28,790 oo 

June 6,342 31,12800 

July 6,568 39,603 oo 

August 6,137 34,83200 

September 5,014 23,672 oo 

October 4,969 2 7-777 

November 4,4^ 25,180 oo 

December 5-5^ 36,543 oo 



Total .... 62,230 363,938 co 

SEX NO. MARRIED OR SINGLE NO. 

Male 51,638 Married 18,098 

Female 10,592 Single 44, 132 



Total 62,230 Total 62 

NATIVITII 

1890. 1890 

Americans (white). ... 33,955 Hungarian 61 

Americans (colored). .. 5,527 Itrlians 748 

Arabian 14 Irish 6,426 

Australian 16 Mexican 5 

Austrian 140 Norvegian 78 q 

Bohemian 721 Polanders 1,027 

Belgians 25 Portuguese 4 

Canadians 911 Russians 505 

Chinese 95 Swedes i,575 

Cubans 3 Scotch 495 

Danes 235 Spanish 12 

East Indian . 6 Swiss 38 

English i ,332 Turks i 

French 413 Welsh 38 

Germans 6,889 Finlander 15 

Greek 133 New Zealander i 

Hollanders 79 

DISPOSITION OF CASES. 1890. 

Number discharged in Police Court 2 4,4 

Number sent to the County Agent ij 

Number sent to Catholic Asvlums 12 



CHICAGO < DARK PLACES. 



Number sent to other Asylums 17 

Number turned over to United States Commissioner i 

Number held in Peace Bonds 2,883 

Number fined in Police Courts ; 

Number held on Criminal Charges 2,340 



Number sent to House of Good Shepherd , 

Number sent to Erring Women's Refuge 

Number sent to Washingtonian Home 

Number sent to Martha Washington Home 

Number sent to County Hospital 

Number turned over to Authorities of other Cities 

Number married in Court 

Number sent to Humane Society 

Number sent to Foundlings' Home 

Number changes of venue granted (to outside justices). .. 
Number sent to United States Marshal 



35 



3 
26 

20 

13 

5 

2,919 

2 



Total 62,230 



OCCUPATION OF PERSONS ARRESTED. 



Actors 

Actresses 

Agents 

Architect 

Apprentices 

Artists 

Attorneys 

Auctioneers. . . . 

Bakers 

Bag-makers 

Barbers 

Bartenders 

Basket-makers.. 

Beggar 

Bill-posters. 
Blacksmiths . . . 
Boiler-makers . . 
Bookbinders 
Book-keepers . . 

Bootblacks 

Bottlers 

Box-makers. . . . 
Brass-finishers. 

Brewers 

Brick-makers. . 
Bricklayers .... 
Bridge-builders. 
Bridge-tenders. 



67 

495 

8 

18 

30 
6 

221 
I 

460 
590 

2 

I 

388 

H5 

45 

182 
172 

2 

81 

75 
29 

5 
435 

34 
4 



Brokers 

Broom-makers . . . 
Brush-makers . . . 

Butchers 

Cab-drivers 

Cabinet-makers. . 

Canvassers 

Capitalists 

Cash girls 

Carpenters 

Carpet-layers 
Carriage makers 

Carvers 

Caterers 

Caulkers 

Chemists 

Clergymen 

Cigar-makers 

Circus man 

Clerks 

Coachmen 

Collectors. 

Conductors 

Confectioners. . . . 

Constables 

Contractors 

Cooks 

Coopers 



1 76 
30 
it 

632 

213 

10 

2 
2 

1.592 

46 

6 
26 

8 

4 
219 



H3 
37 

22 

57 

22 
159 

353 



22O 



CHICAGO S DARK PLACES. 



Coppersmiths 10 

Curriers 25 

Cutlers 14 

Cornice-makers 38 

Dentist 4 

Designer i 

Distiller i 

Draughtsmen 

Dressmakers 17 

Drovers 31 

Druggists 44 

Drummers 4 

Dyers 

Editors 1 1 

Electricians iy 

Engineers 287 

Engravers 22 

Errand boys 26 

Expressmen 242 

Farmers 1 30 

Finishers 85 

Firemen 148 

Fishermen 18 

Florists 9 

Foremen 21 

Fortunetellers 5 

Furriers 13 

Gamblers ; 9 

Gardeners 43 

Gasfitters 51 

Gilders 12 

Glass-blowers 2 S 

Glaziers 12 

Grocers 118 

Gripman i 

Gunsmith i 

Hackmen 57 

Harness-makers 60 

Hatters 15 

Horse-shoers 30 

Hostlers 335 

Hotel-keepers 124 

House-keepers 2,810 

House-movers 40 

Inspectors 14 

Ironworkers 4 

Tee peddlers 3 

Janitors 93 



Jewelers 45 

Jockeys 3 

Laborers 1 3,657 



Lamp-lighters 

Lathers 

Laundresses. . . . 
Laundrymen . . . 
Letter carriers . . 
Lithographers . . 
Junk dealers. . . 
Livery-keepers . 
Locksmiths. ... 
Manufacturers . . 

Machinists 

Managers 

Marble-cutters. 

Masons 

Merchants 

Merchant police 

Malsters 

Midwives 

Milkmen 

Millers 

Milliners 

Millwright 

Miners 

Moulders 

Musicians 

Nail-makers . . . 

Newsboys 

Nurses 

No occupation 1 7,580 

Organ-grinders 5 

Office boys 22 

Packers 9 

Painters i ,ooa 

Paper carriers 10 

Paper-hangers 64 

Pattern-makers 13 

Pawnbrokers 10 

Pavers 6 

Peddlers 1,193 

Photographers 28 

Physicians 2 ^ 

Piano-makers 5 

Platers 6 

Plasterers 214 

Plumbers 387 



158 

78 

53 

7 

21 

6 7 

39 

21 
14 

^73 
i 

28 

106 

612 

9 

6 

=; 

68 

10 

16 

i 

116 
588 
101 

1 20 
41 



CHICAGO S DARK PLACES. 



221 



Policemen 25 

Polishers 33 

Porters 184 

Pressers 386 

Potters 2 

Pressmen 3 

Printers 571 

Prostitutes 753 

Publishers 6 

Rag-pickers... 11 

Rat catchers 15 

Railroad employes .... 779 

Real estate agents .... 13 

Reporters 45 

Restaurant keepers... 

Roofers 83 

Rope-makers 24 

Runners 37 

Sail-makers 3 

Sailors 397 

Salesmen 87 

Saloon-keepers 1,050 

Sawyers 3 

Saw-filers 18 

Scavengers 34 

Seamstresses 20 

Second-handlers 22 

Servants 506 

Sewer builders 42 

Shoemakers .... ..... 366 

Sign hangers 

Silversmiths 

Slaters 

Soap-maker 

Soldiers 

Spring-makers 



2 

4 

IO 

I 

IO 

5 



Steam-fitters z& 

Stenographers 89 

Stencil-cutter i 

Stereotypers 3 

Stevedores 2 

Stock dealers 15 

Stone cutters 56 

Store-keepers 115 

Students 54 

Surveyor i 

Tailors 485 

Tanners 37 

Teachers 5 

Teamsters 2 >554 

Telegraph operators. . 96 

Tinsmiths 249 

Traders 2 

Trimmers 2 

Tug captains 6 

Tuck -pointers 

Turners 8 

Type-setters 13 

Undertakers 3 

Umbrella makers ri 

Upholsterers j6 

Veterinaries 4 

Wagon-makers 19 

Waiters 627 

Watch-makers 18 

Watchmen 120 

Weighers 3 

Weavers 6 

Whitewashers 15 

Grand total 62,230 



CLASSIFICATION OF OFFENSES. 



CHARGES. 



Abduction 

Abortion 

Accessory to assault. . , 
Accessory to burglary . 
Accessory to larceny . . 
Accessory to rape .... 
Accessory to robbery . 
Adultery 



1890. 

55 
6 

7 

27 
50 

2 
5* 



222 CHICAGO'S DARK PLACES. 

A rson 8 

Assault and battery 712 

Assault 552 

Assaulting an officer 31 

Assault with a deadly weapon 454 

Assault with intent to commit rape 67 

Assault with intent to rob 38 

Assault with intent to kill 264 

Assault with intent to do bodily injury 330 

Attempt to commit larceny 1 1 

Attempt to commit burglary 89 

Bastardy 107 

Bigamy 18 

Burglary 1,087 

Carrying concealed weapons 836 

Conspiracy 14 

Contempt of court 10 

Counterfeiting 5 

Criminal carlessness 17 

Crime against nature 16 

Cruelty to animals 98 

Cruelty to children , 20 

Decoying to a gaming house 4 

Destitute S3 

Disorderly 37,063 

Distributing obscene literature 18 

Dogfighting f 

Doing business without a license 228 

Embezzlement 73 

Exposing person 133 

Fast driving 212 

Forgery 1 20 

Fugitives from justice 24 

Having burglars tools 2 

Having gaming devices 12 

1 1 legal voting i 

Incest 3 

Inmates of assignation houses 151 

Inmates of disorderly house 85 

Inmates of gaming house 1,381 

Inmates of house of ill fame 3.082 

Inmates of opium den 46 

Interfering with officer discharging duty 165 

Intimidation " 26 

Keeping assignation house 24 

Keeping a disorderly house 23 

Keeping a gaming house 170 

Keeping a house of ill fame 534 




224 CHICAGO S DARK PLACES. 

MISCELLANEOUS DUTIES REFORMED BY POLICE. 

NATURE OF DUTIES PERFORMED. 1890. 

Number of lost children found and restored to parents. ... 3,828 

Number of lodgers accommodated 29,402 

Number of meals furnished prisoners and lodgers 91,022 

Number of intoxicated persons assisted home i>95i 

Number of persons rescued from drowning 52 

Number of sick and injured persons- assisted 2,665 

No. women and children cared for by matrons at stations 13,057 

REPORT OF PRINCIPAL MATRON. 

TOTALS. 

Number of female prisoners 9i77o 

Number of female 'odgers i,i.59 

Number of females searched 10,929 

Number of sick females cared for in stations 761 

Number of insane females cared for in stations 97 

Number of lost children cared for 1,899 

Number of destitute children cared for 192 

Number of women and children returned to their homes. . 2,230 
Number of women and children furnished with employment 116 

Number of women sent to Martha Washington Home. ... 65 

Number of women sent to House of Good Shepherd 86 

Numb, women and children sent to Home of the Friendless 125 

Number of women sent to Erring Women's Refuge 71 

Number of children sent to St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum 60 

Number of children sent to Foundlings' Home 22 

Number of children sent to St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum . . 1 1 

Number sent to Anchorage Mission 63 

Number sent to Evanston Industrial ^School 26 

Number sent to Chicago Industrial School 5 

Number sent to County Agent 114 

Number sent to Countv Hospital 62 

Number sent to Detention Hospital 86 

Number of persons furnished transportation 148 

Number of women and children under matrons care in Dist. 1 3,057 

The total expenditures of the Police Department 
during the year 1890 were $2,200,126.96, and the esti- 
mated cost for salaries for 1891, made by the Superin- 
tendent, was $2,778,673.00. 



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PRIEST, 
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THE CONFESSIONS CF MOTHERS 

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Church, wh ere he held high position. 

CONTENTS: 

I. The struggle before the surrender of womanly self-respect in 

the Confessional. 

II. Auricular CoiM es sion is a deep pit of perdition for the priest. 
III. The Confeseioi/X is the modern Sodom. 
IV. How the vow O'f celibacy is made easy by Auricular Con- 

fession. 

V. The highly-educated and refined woman in thef on f ess i ona i 
What becomes of her 3,fter her unconditional surrender 
Her irreparable ruin. 
VI. Auricular Confession destroys ,. a "Jhe sacred ties of marriage 

and human society. 
VII. Should Auricular Confession be tolerated among civilized 

nations? 

VIII. Does Auricular Confession bring peace to the soul? 
IX. The dogma of Auricular Confession a sacrilegious imposture. 
X. Some of the matters on which the priest of Rome must 
question his penitents. 



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" It is a remarkable work. It gives such an insight into the enor- 
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which he relates things enough to rouse the stones to cry out 
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poison to the Church, the family, society and the soul." 

THE COLERAINE CHRONICLE: 

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